2898.
CUSCUTA Trifolii.
Clover Dodder.
P ENT ANDRIA Digynia.
Gen. Char. Calyx 4-5 cleft, inferior. Corolla 4-5
cleft, with an equal number of membranous
scales placed within the stamens. Capsule
bursting all round at the base, 2-celled j cells 2-
seeded.
Spec. Char. Heads of flowers sessile, bracteated.
Tube of the corolla funnel-shaped. Scales converging,
half as long as the tube of the corolla,
fimbriated and rounded at the end, distant below
with rounded saccate interspaces. Calyx narrowed
below, equalling the tube of the corolla.
Germen narrowed below. Stigmas filiform.
Syn. Cuscuta Trifolii. Bab. in Phytol. (Feb. 1843.)
v. 1. 467. Ann. Nat. Hist. v. 13. 252.
C. Epithymum /3. Trifolii. Bab. Man. Br. Bot. 303.
O lJ R present subject has slender claims to be considered
as a native of Britain, but has recently become quite a pest in
the clover-fields of the eastern and southern counties of England.
It was probably introduced from the neighbouring
continent with the seed of clover, and thus unintentionally
sown by the farmer in the places where its destructive powers
are afterwards exerted to his serious injury.
It was at first supposed to be a variety of the C. FpifJiy 'onini^
to which it bears considerable resemblance, but has since been
distinguished from that plant; and although the specific characters
originally pointed out were of an unsatisfactory kind,
further observation, by the addition of numerous decided but
very minute differences, has strongly confirmed their specific