MEDICAGO sylvestris.
Wild Lucerne.
D IAD E LPH IA Decandria.
Gen. Char. Calyx of five nearly equal teeth. Keel
blunt. Stamens diadelphous. Filaments filiform.
Ovary curved. Pod 1 -celled, hooked or spirally
twisted. Seeds 1 or more,
Spec. Char. Stem pithy, ascending. Racemes many-
flowered. Pod forming one complete flat ring.
Pedicels shorter than the calyx, longer than the
bract. Leaflets obovate-oblong, emarginate, mu-
cronate.
Syn. Medicago sylvestris. Fries, Herb. Norm. fasc.
7. 38 (1840) ; Nov. FI. Suec. Mant. 3. 92 ; Summa
Veg. Scand. 163. Bab. Man. Br. Bot. ed. 3. 71.
ed. 5. 75. Syme, E. Bot. ed. 3. pi. cccxxxv.
M. falcata, /3. sylvestris. Bab. in Bot. Gaz. v. 1.6.
I t is with much pleasure that we publish a plate of the
Wild Lucerne; for we agree with Fries in believing it to be
specifically distinct from the Lucerne of cultivation, M. sativa,
Linn. Fries gave excellent illustrations of these plants in his
valuable Herbarium Normale, when he described our present
subject for the first time. There, as in his other works, he
refers the M. falcata of Smith to his M. sylvestris, on the
authority, as he afterwards tells us, of an authentic named
specimen of the plant figured on our tab. 1016. I t is clear
that Sir J. E. Smith confounded the two plants, and that
he has added a ripe pod of M. sylvestris to a figure of the
flowering state of it/, falcata. Indeed they were not distin