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REST-HARROW
Ononis spinosa
Family LEGUMINOSAE
The Rest-Harrow will be found in barren pastures and ill-cultivated fields. Known in Sussex and Hampshire as the Cammock, the Rest-Harrow or Wrest-Harrow, it is one of those plants whose presence in the pasture is said to indicate poverty or neglect.
It is a perenniallow shrub, sometimes creeping near the ground, and at others growing more erect.
The rootstock often creeps underground, and is particulary tough. The plant is often spiny, and reaches a height of a foot or more. The leaflets are oblong.
The flowers are similar in structure to those of Broom, and may be borne either singly or in racemes. They are pink in colour; the petal, known as the standard, is very large in this species, and streaked with a red of a deeper shade. The flower does not secrete nectar, and the insect visitors only obtain pollen for their trouble.
The seed-pod is very small, containing two or three seeds.
The flowering period is from June to September.
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It is . unknown in Ireland except as an introduced plant. From its base spring slender branches about a foot long. The leaves on the upper part of harrow Rest the flowering stem are sharply pointed, lower down the points are blunted, and on the flowerless shoots they are strap-shaped. They are downy and are disposed in pairs, their Rest harrow bases joined. The flowers are usually solitary, less than an inch across; calyx smooth, five-toothed with overlapping bracts below.
After fertilization, the receptacle gradually enlarges Rest harrow to such a size that the achenes, formerly paeked close together, become widely separated. The so-called berry beeomes red as it ripens, and its tissues are filled with sweet Rest harrow juices. Flowering nearly the whole summer. On grasslands and roadside wastes one may be sure to find the neat leaves and long, slender, creeping stems of the Cinquefoil. It has harrow Rest woody rootstocks, which extend for a foot or more in the soil, black outside and red within, and at their upper end these branch and form several erowns.
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