VIII. Strawberry-headed Clover (_T. fragiferum_). Similar in habit to the last. Flower-head globose, of small purple-red flowers, much larger after flowering, when the calyces swell and take on a red colour, which increases size of head to an inch in diameter, and gives it a strawberry-like aspect. Meadows and pastures. July and August.
IX. Hop Trefoil (_T. procumbens_). (_See_ Figure on p. 47.) This must not be confounded with the Hop Trefoil of the farmer (_Medicago lupulina_), in which the flowers are borne in spikes (_see_ p. 73). The stems are downy, one growing erect, others all round it creeping. The flowers are pale yellow, crowded in the heads, the upper petal (_standard_) broad, and arched over the _straight_ pod, turning bright brown, which gives the head the appearance of a hop strobile. The pods are always so covered in this species, whereas, in _Medicago lupulina_ they are naked. Dry pastures and roadsides. June to August.
X. Small Yellow Trefoil (_T. dubium_). Stems slight, creeping, nearly smooth. Heads smaller, on long slender stalk. Flowers yellow, the standard narrow, keeled, turning dark brown after flowering and wrapped round the pod. Similar situations and date to last.
=Sain Foin= (_Onobrychis sativa_). Plate 49.
Still keeping to the Leguminous plants, we have here a handsome herb of aspect very different from that of the Trefoils. It is much cultivated as a fodder plant in dry fields, but will also be found growing wild on chalk-hills and downs. It is, however, suspected of being an escape from cultivation that has taken to an independent life. The plant springs from a perennial woody rootstock, and its stout downy stems are more or less erect. The leaves are pinnate, the leaflets in about twelve pairs and a terminal one. The flowers are in spikes, the standard broad; bright clear pink, veined with a deeper rosy tint. The pod is semicircular, wrinkled, and contains but one seed. Flowers June to August. The name is derived from two Greek words, signifying the braying of an ass, because that animal is fabled to bray after it when he sees but cannot reach it.
From the close-cropped turf of our commons and in meadows the bright eyes of this plant peep out through the summer. In such situations it is a very lowly herb, only an inch or so in height, but in some places, as in the pastures of the Highlands, it grows erect to a height of nearly a foot, with many opposite branches. The leaves are ovate, opposite, without stalks, and of a dark-green hue. The flowers are borne near the extremities of the branches. Some of the flowers are much larger than others, and in the larger the stigmas ripen before the anthers; in the smaller the anthers mature before the stigmas. The tubular calyx is divided into four sharp lobes. The corolla is white, streaked with purple, except the central lobe of the lower lip, which is yellow. This is the only native species of the genus--which is comprised in the order Scrophularineæ--though there are several varietal forms. Flowers from May to September. The name is from the Greek, _Euphraino_, to delight or gladden, in allusion to the pleasing contrast of its bright flowers with the dark foliage, or from its supposed efficacy for complaints affecting the eyes--its removal of these giving gladness.