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TRIFOLIUM officinale.
Common Melilot.
DIADELPHIA Decandria.
Gen. Char. Flowers more or less capitate. Pod
scarcely longer than the calyx, never bursting, but
falling off entire.
Spec. Char. Pods spiked, naked, rugged, acute, containing
two seeds. Stem erect.
Syn. Trifolium officinale. Sm. FI. Brit. 781. Relh. 286.
T . Melilotus-officinalis. Linn. Sp. PL 1078. Huds. 323.
With. 645. Hull. 162. Sibth. 227. Abbot. 161.
Mart. Rust. t. 72.
Melilotus vulgaris. Raii Syn. 331.
FREQUENT in bushy places, borders of fields, and sometimes
among corn, flowering in June and July. It was formerly
cultivated as a crop, and has very lately come into
fashion again in some places. When dry it has the smell of
hay, but in a peculiarly strong degree, approaching the flavour
of bitter almonds. The seeds have the same flavour, and
render it, as Professor Martyn observes, a very bad weed
among bread corn, to which they powerfully communicate
their taste.
Root annual. Stem erect, rather slender, furrowed, branched,
leafy. Leaves ternate, (very rarely we have seen 5 together,)
on stalks; the leaflets obovate, narrow, serrated, smooth.
Flowers in long, axillary, stalked spikes, yellow, all drooping
toward one side, with small bracteae. Calyx and partial stalks
hairy. Stigma obtuse. Pod pendulous, elliptical, tapering at
each end, transversely wrinkled, hairy. Seeds two.