in deference to their judgement than from entire conviction of
the propriety of so doing. We have observed the plant for
several years past with a good deal of attention; and although
firmly persuaded of the truth of what is as strenuously denied
by others, the production of hybrids between wild vegetables,
we shall merely hint the possibility of such agency to account
for the occurrence of certain puzzling intermediate forms,
which seem to forbid the separation of Vida gradlis and
tetrasperma as species.
Although long overlooked, V. gradlis occurs in several of
the southern counties of England. Mr. Quekett has gathered
it in Kent, Mr. Babington near Bath, and in the Isle of
Wight it is sometimes to be met with abundantly, and as a
troublesome weed, amongst corn; as also in waste places in
hedges, and even in woods, often growing with V. tetrasperma.
The specimen figured was gathered July 16th in a field near
Coppid Hall in that island, where the wheat and adjoining
hedge-rows were overrun with it. Mr. W. Andrews has also
found it in the county of Kerry, Ireland.
It differs from V. tetrasperma in its generally greater size
and somewhat glaucous hue; in its flowers, which are usually
more numerous and twice or thrice as large, with the standard
of a uniform lilac or rose colour, scarcely streaked as in
that with darker lines; in the much longer, narrower and
sharply acuminate leaflets, which seldom exceed three pairs,
and stand erect in a remarkable manner on the common leafstalk,
which terminates in a simple tendril, whilst in V. tetrasperma
the tendril is mostly, though not invariably branched.
Peduncles from 1- to 6- or 7-flowered, much longer, especially
the upper ones, which when in seed are twice the length, or
nearly so, of the leaf, from the axil of which they spring, terminating
in a straight awn-like point (abortive flower ?) occasionally
observed in the other. Legumes longer and narrower,
glabrous, rarely containing less than five or more than
seven seeds, usually six. These are globose, dark gray or
yellowish, clouded or mottled with black, and quite smooth,
the hilum broadly oval, nearly circular.
All the above characters are assuredly liable to variation,
merging insensibly into those of V. tetrasperma in some one
or more organs of the plant occasionally; so that whoever
studies these species in their native localities, or will be at the
pains of comparing the descriptions of Brotero, Bieberstein,
and others, will see reason to doubt the propriety of keeping
them asunder.
Brotero says of our V. gradlis, “ Semina in germine 5 ad
7, fertilia 3, 4, 5, rarissime 6 but his plate shows only four
seeds in the pod; in this island they are almost constantly six.
Specimens perfectly agreeing with our own are in the Smithian
herbarium from Gibraltar and Tangier, which Sir James
at that time appears, from a pencil note, to have thought a
new species and called Ervum polyspermum. In the same
herbarium is a specimen intermediate between the present
plant and V. tetrasperma, gathered by Mr. Woodward many
years ago, and noticed in Engl. Bot. under that species
(t. 1223).
V. gradlis seems not unfrequent in the south and middle
of Europe, and, if Fries's plant is the same, even in Sweden.
It has not yet been recorded as inhabiting Scotland, in which
country, as in Switzerland, V. tetrasperma, so common in
England, is but rarely met with. In Portugal, Brotero tells
us, it affords grateful food to cattle; it might therefore be
worthy the notice of agriculturists at home.—W. A. B.