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TRIFOLIUM ornithopodioides.
Bird's-foot Trefoil.
DIADELPHIA Decandria.
G e n . C h a r . Flowers more or left capitate. Pod
fcarcely longer than the calyx, never burfting,
but falling o ff entire.
S p e c . C h a r . Pods naked, eight-feeded, about three
together, twice as long as the calyx. Stems pro-»
cumbent.
Syn. Trifolium ornithopodioides. Linn. Sp. PI. 1078.
Sm. FI. Brit. 782. Hudf. 324, With. 645.
Hull. 162. Curt. Lond. fafc. 2. t. 33.
Fcenugraecum humile repens, Ornithopodii filiquis
brevibus eredtis. Raii Syn. 331. t. 14.ƒ. 1.
P r OBABLY, as Mr. Curtis obferves, the fmall fize, and,
we may add, the proftrate pofition, of this Trefoil, may have
caufed it to be thought more rare than it really is. It grows
on barren gravelly heaths among fhort grafs, flowering in
June and July, and is annual. Our fpecimen came from Black-
heath.
The fibrous root is furnilhed with fmall flefhy knobs, as
in Vida lathyroides and fome others of this clafs, apparently
to refill accidental drought during fummer. The Hems fpread
clofe to the ground, and are fmooth, leafy, moftly unbranched.
Leaves on long llalks, with lanceolate, pointed, united ftipulae;
their leaflets obcordate, ribbed, more or lefs ferrated, fmooth.
Flower-ftalks axillary, Ihort, bearing 2 or 3 flender reddilh
flowers in an umbel. Calyx-teeth long and taper. Petals
with long claws. Pod oblong, blunt, tranfverfely rugged, almoll
twice as long as the calyx, and containing about 8 feeds 3
circumftances which, while they prevent our confounding this
with any other Britilh Trifolium, render it very difficult to
conftruft a generic character which may comprehend all the
fpecies which Nature has llamped with the habit and general
ftru&ure of the genus.