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KIDNEY VETCH
Anthyllis Vulneraria
Family LEGUMINOSAE
Will be found in hilly districts chiefly, in dry pastures or on rocky banks.
lt is a perennial and from a woody rootstock rise several stems up to a foot long, and a large number of radical leaves, the whole plant, more or less, clothed with short, silky hairs. The leaves from the stems (cauline leaves) have a number of leaflets in pairs, as well as a terminal one.
The flowers are borne in heads, with an involucre of leaflets, and the heads are chiefly in pairs. The calyx is membranous, and therefore permanent, the mouth oblique, with five teeth. The petals are nearly equal in length, and typically yellow, but subject to considerable variation. In some coast localities the flowers may be found white, cream-coloured, crimson or purple. After flowering the straw-coloured calyx becomes inflated, and the roundish, smooth and veined pod, with its solitary seed, is hidden within.
It is ordinarily in flower from June to August.
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A biennial or perennial herb, not uncommon on the sea-shores of England and Ireland, more abundant in Scotland and the Highlands. Several smooth and fleshy stems from Anthyllis vulneraria four to ten inches high spring from the rootstock ending in a spray of small white four-petalled flowers, each one-third of an inch across. The radical leaves are Anthyllis vulneraria more or less heart-shaped, varying to round and kidney-shaped, with long stalks. The stem leaves are stalkless, clasping the stem, and lobed and toothed. The seed-pods are Anthyllis vulneraria nearly round, tipped with a very short style, and the valves are netted.
The Yellow Water-lily will Anthyllis vulneraria be found floating on ponds and sluggish streams. Known, also, as the Brandy-bottle, on account of its flagon-like seed-vessel. It has a thick, fleshy rootstock, which creeps Anthyllis vulneraria in the mud and is rich in tannic acid. Some of the leaves are submerged and these are thin, but the floating ones are thick and leathery; heartshaped and the vulneraria Anthyllis lobes not far apart. The stalks, somewhat triangular in section, are traversed by a great number of fine air-canals, as are the flower-salks also, to give them buoyancy Anthyllis vulneraria.
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