different in appearance from the last, as its stems are slender, and not more than two or three inches long. The heads of the flowers are very large in proportion to the size of the plant. They occur in June and July, and are of dark bluish purple, or sometimes pale lilac, or white. The plant, though somewhat local, is abundant on some dry gravelly and chalky pastures chiefly in the south of England. It grows plentifully on Royston Heath, in Cambridgeshire. The French call the Milk-vetch L'Astragale; the Germans, Tragant; the Dutch, Kootruid; and it is the Astragalo of the Italian and Spaniard.

3. A. alpinus (Alpine Milk-vetch).-Stem ascending; leaflets oval; stipules egg-shaped, free; legumes stalked, drooping, two or three-seeded, and clothed with black hairs; whole plant downy. This, which like the other species is perennial, is exceedingly rare. Its recorded places of growth are the Glen of the Dole, Clova, and Little Craigindal, Braemar. It bears clusters of few spreading or drooping flowers in July, which are white and tipped with purple. This plant is by some writers called Phaca Astragalina.

13. VICIA (Vetch, Tare).

* Flower-stalks lengthened, sometimes longer than the leaves; calyx gibbous

at the base.

1. V. sylvática (Wood Vetch).-Flower-stalks many flowered, longer than the leaves; leaflets in about eight pairs, elliptical, abrupt, with a sharp point; tendrils branched; stipules crescent-shaped, deeply toothed at the base. Plant perennial. Few of our wild flowers are more ornamental to our hedges in summer than the vetches which tangle among the bushes, holding themselves by leaning on their stronger neighbours; and as Cowper says, repaying

"The strength they borrow with the grace they lend."

Of all our wild vetches this is the loveliest, its beautiful white flowers, streaked with bluish veins, being very numerous and large. It is not, however, a common plant, growing chiefly in mountainous woods, or in bushy places of mountainous districts in Scotland, the north and north-west of England, Ireland, and Wales; though it has been found in Kent, Oxfordshire, and other counties away from mountains. Walter Scott thus describes it

"Where profuse the wood-vetch clings,
Round ash and elm in slender rings,
Its pale and azure pencill'd flower
Should canopy Titania's bower.”

It flowers in July and August, and its long stem climbs sometimes to the height of six feet, its branching tendrils entwining themselves on the woodland boughs. Mr. Lees remarks, while objecting to the practice of scattering the seeds of garden-flowers in wild places," Last week I passed through a wood covering one of the transition limestone hills, near Ledbury, which was most profusely ornamented by the beautiful Vicia sylvatica, festooning the trees on all sides. I was delighted in the extreme at this wild production of nature, so strikingly lovely, though," adds this botanist, "had it been in the power of any person to have informed me that some ornamenter of wilds had been profusely sowing the plant in the wood, my pleasure would have been much abated; nor could I in that case have concluded that a calcareous soil was the natural home of the plants." We share with Mr. Lees in his dislike of the practice of scattering the seeds of exotic plants among the wild woods and rocks. In the progress of man's mechanical skill, we shall soon have little left to us of the true country; we would fain preserve its wild flowers in all their native beauty, unmingled. The garden,

the plantation, and the pleasure ground, are, as Mr. Lees remarks, the proper places for man's sportive and improving hand. Many of our wild plants have been, and deserve to be, admitted within its inclosure. The Rev. W. T. Bree, asks of this Wood-vetch, "Why is not this beautiful climber, certainly one of the most charming and elegant of our native plants, more frequently cultivated in the garden? Is it on account of any peculiarity of the soil which it requires ? or the difficulty of making it succeed in a state of cultivation? It generally prefers a chalky or calcareous soil; thus I have observed it in beautiful luxuriance in the neighbourhood of Clifton and Bristol, also in the vicinity of Oxford, and lately near Dover. But it also occasionally occurs in a light sandy soil, as in Bentley Park, near Atherstone, in Warwickshire. I have more than once sown the seeds in the garden, and seldom succeeded in making them come up, or at least raising them to perfection. What is the cause of the failure?"

A writer in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, commenting on this, remarks," I was rather surprised to find a query as to the difficulty of cultivating the Vicia sylvatica. It grows in thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, on Hort's Hill, Hey's Wood, just ten miles from Coventry, festooning the underwood with its beautiful chocolate-striped petals most delightfully. It is a sight well worth walking miles to see. In a garden in that village, this plant and the Crimson Vetchling (Lathyrus Nissolia), found wild in that neighbourhood, have been cultivated for many years without difficulty, and there is always an abundance of self-sown plants.'

This is a valuable herbage plant, furnishing by its bulk a large amount of food, which is very nutritive. Many agriculturists have recommended that it should be sown in fields; but Mr. Curtis was of opinion, that if cultivated alone, the plants would become entangled and perish for want of support.

2. V. Crácca (Tufted Vetch).-Flower-stalks elongated, many-flowered; leaves of about ten pairs; leaflets lanceolate, with spiny point, silky; stipules entire, half arrow-shaped; calyx-teeth shorter than their tube; pods linear, oblong, smooth. Plant perennial. During the months of July and August, the handsome crowded spikes of the Tufted Vetch climb to the topmost bough of the hedge, or droop down in luxuriance among the branches of the wood. They are of a rich purplish blue, the flowers all turning one way, and the spikes often two or three inches long. The lover of flowers is glad to see this lovely vetch, clinging to the hedges by the meadow; and the farmer welcomes it there too, knowing that it affords a large amount of fodder to the animals grazing on its pasture. Dr. Plot, in his "History of Staffordshire," says of this nutritious plant, and the Vicia sylvatica, that they "advance starven or weak cattle above any thing yet knowne." Its culture has been often recommended. It might have been this flower to which Charlotte Smith alludes in the lines which so well describe the summer hedge:

"An early worshipper at Nature's shrine,

I loved her rudest scenes-warrens and heaths,
And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows,
And hedgerows bordering unfrequented lanes;
Bower'd with wild roses, and the clasping woodbine,
Where purple tassels of the tangling Vetch
With bittersweet, and bryony inweave,
And the dew fills the silver bindweed's cups.
I love to trace the brooks whose humid banks
Nourish the harebell, and the freckled pagil;
And stroll among o'ershadowing woods of beech,
Lending in summer, from the heats of noon,
A whispering shade, while haply there reclines
Some pensive lover of uncultured flowers."

The seeds of the Tufted Vetch are roundish and black, doubtless they, with those of the other vetches, contribute to furnish food for our wild birds.

3. V. Órobus (Wood Bitter Vetch).--Leaves pinnate, hairy; with from seven to ten pairs of egg-shaped, somewhat oblong acute leaflets; stipules half arrowshaped, slightly toothed at the base; flower-stalks many-flowered; stem branched, prostrate, hairy; tendrils reduced to a point. Plant perennial. This Woodvetch or Wood-pea, as it is often called, flowers in May and June, having onesided clusters of cream-coloured blossoms with purple streaks. It is not common in the South of England, but in the woods and mountainous and rocky places in the North, it is not an unfrequent plant among bushes.

4. V. Bithýnica (Rough-podded Purple Vetch).-Flower-stalks shorter than the leaves, 1 or 2-flowered; leaflets either linear or lanceolate, acute, upper leafstalks having two pairs; stipules half arrow-shaped and toothed; calyx-teeth lanceolate, somewhat awl-shaped. Plant perennial. This rare species is found where the soil is of gravel, occurring chiefly near the sea. The flower is of purplish colour, with paler, almost white wings, and the round seeds are speckled with black and grey. The blossoms are most often solitary, and appear in July and August.

** Peduncles short, axillary, few-flowered; calyx equal at the base.

5. V. lathyroides (Spring Vetch).-Flowers solitary, sessile; pods smooth; leaflets in two or three pairs, inversely egg-shaped or oblong, tipped with a spine; calyx-teeth awl-shaped; stipules entire, not marked with a dark spot; pods linear, smooth; seeds nearly cubical, roughish. Plant annual. This species is very nearly allied to the next, looking like a dwarfed specimen of it. Its stem is prostrate, and usually about six inches long. The flowers are of bright purple, and expand in April and May.

*** Flowers axillary, scarcely stalked; calyx swelling at the base on one side.

6. V. sativa (Common Vetch).-Flowers solitary or in pairs, nearly sessile ; leaflets in from four to seven pairs, oblong or inversely heart-shaped, the upper ones narrowest, all tipped with a spine; calyx-teeth equal; pods slender, somewhat silky; stipules half arrow-shaped, toothed at the base, marked with a sunken dark spot; seeds round and smooth. Plant annual. This vetch is often found growing apparently wild in fields, but it is a doubtful native, and has most probably escaped from cultivation. The plant is very extensively sown for cattle, and is the summer and winter tare of the agriculturist. These two tares were long regarded as different species, but Professor Martyn, on cultivating them both, found that they were not even distinct varieties, only requiring that the one should be sown in the Spring, the other in October. This is the only species of the genus, except the Bean, which is cultivated to any extent in this country.

The Tare crop is of so much importance in our own land, that Mr. Young observed, that not one-tenth of the animals reared for the use of man could be supported without it. "This common vetch," he says, "maintains more animals than any other plant whatsoever, no artificial food being to be compared with it." Another advantage of the tare to the cultivator is mentioned by Professor Thaers, which is, that when cut green it does not exhaust the soil; and that when made into hay it is more palatable and nutritive to cattle than any other food. Vetches are generally cut down before ripening their seeds, but these are sometimes allowed to ripen, either for sowing or for feeding pigeons. The plant is usually about two feet high, and has purple, blue, or reddish flowers in June. A variety