Several spring-flowering leguminous plants (order _Leguminosæ_) are to be found in fields and meadows, and of these we will first notice the Spotted Medick (_Medicago maculata_), generally easily distinguished by the dark spot in the centre of the leaflets of its trifoliate leaves. It is a smooth plant, with procumbent, branching stems varying from six inches to two feet in length. There are fine, spreading hairs on the leafstalks, and the leaflets are obcordate and toothed. At the base of each leafstalk there is a pair of toothed stipules. The small, yellow flowers are in short, dense racemes, only a few in each cluster; and the pods are little compact spirals, almost globular in general form, with three or four ridges, and a central furrow broken by a number of fine, curved prickles. The plant is abundant in the southern counties of England and Ireland, where it grows on pasture-land, flowering from May to near the end of the summer. The Netted Medick (_M. denticulata_), of the same genus, is a similar plant, flowering during the same period, and often seen in the southern and eastern counties of England, especially in fields near the coast. Its prostrate stems are of the same length as those of the Spotted Medick; and its leaves are also very similar, but the stipules are bordered with very fine teeth. The flowers are in small, yellow heads; and the pod forms a loose, flat spiral of two or three coils, deeply netted on the surface, and bordered with curved prickles. We have next to note several species of Trefoils (genus _Trifolium_), all distinguished by trifoliate, compound leaves, so familiar to us in the clovers; and stipules which adhere to the leafstalks. Their flowers are in dense clusters, and each one has a five-toothed calyx, and an irregular corolla of narrow petals which usually remains, in a withered condition, around the ripening pod. There are ten stamens, the upper one free, while the remaining nine, united by their filaments, form a split tube round the ovary. The pod sometimes contains only one seed, and never more than four. The Subterranean Trefoil (_T. subterraneum_), which is abundant on the dry pastures of South England, is characterised by a stem, from six to eighteen inches long, which is underground for the greater part. The visible portion of the plant is small, and more or less covered with long, spreading hairs. The leaves are on long stalks, with obovate leaflets, and broad stipules. The flowers vary in colour from white to pink or crimson, and are usually in hairy clusters of from two to four. As the fruit ripens, the peduncle lengthens and bends downward. At the same time the calyx turns back on the stalk, exposing short fibres, each with five spreading teeth which fold over the fruit. The flowers appear during May and June.