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O R N I T H O P U S perpufillus.
Common Bird's-foot.
D IA D E L P H IA Decandria.
G e n . C h a r . Pod jo in t e d , c y lin d r ic a l, c u rv e d .
S p e c . C h a r . Leaves pinnated. Pods curved upwards.
S y n . Ornithopus perpufillus. Linn. Sp. Pi. 1049.
Hudf.Fl. An. 321. With. Bot. Arr. 782. Relb.
Cant. 276. Sibtb. Ox. 225. Curt. Lond.fajc. 6 .
t.
Ornithopodium radice nodofa. Raii Syn. 326.
T h i s pretty little flower prefers a gravelly or fandy foil,
growing among grafs in dry open paftures abundantly, as in
Hyde Park beyond the fpring, where it may be found in perfection
in May, and occafionally to the end of fummer.
Root annual, fmall and fibrous, fometimes, according to the
obfervation of Doody in Ray’s Synopfis, propagating itfelf by
little flelhy tubercles, like thofe of Vicia lathyraides, fee our
tab. 30, in which cafe it does not ripen feed. Stems more or
lefs procumbent, very various in length and luxuriance, leafy,
downy. Leaves alternate, of about 5 to 10 or 12 pair of fmall
elliptical leaflets, with a terminal one of the fame fize and
figure, hairy, efpecially on the back. Stipulse none. Flowers
feflile in little terminal umbels, accompanied by a leaf. Standard
and wings elegantly ftriped with red and white; keel
greenifh. Stigma capitate, naked. Pods a little curved upwards,
with a very Ihort beak; their joints tumid, fo as to
render them fomewhat like a firing of beads; in all which particulars
they differ from O. compreffus of Linnaeus, which fome
botanifts have fufpeCled our Englifh plant to be, but we have
afcertained it by his herbarium to be O. perpufillus.