The seeds, again, may vary in colour; some, like those of the scarlet-runner, are curious as affording an infinite variety of self-colours for their different sorts, from pure white to absolute black; or these may be so pencilled as to make a _testa_ or seed-covering as variously mottled as are the eggs of some of our birds. Yet, whether rounded as in the pea, flat as in the bean, lenticular as in the lentil, or kidney-shaped as in the clovers, they are all readily referred to one group by the flat, oval eye (_hilum_ of the botanist), and the fact of their ready capability of separating into two valves (_cotyledons_), so observable in our split peas and beans. But of all the varieties in their parts presented by the pea-flowered tribe of plants,—if we except the fact that some are larger trees, as the locust tree, ebony, laburnum, &c., whilst some are among our smallest plants, as clovers and medicks,—the principal differences will be found in the foliage. The grass vetchling, for example, is so named from its leaves being not unlike those of grasses, while the yellow vetchling, in its mature state, has the whole leaf converted into a tendril and the appendages at the bases of the leaves (_stipules_) are so enlarged as to be often mistaken for leaves: in another of the vetchlings, the everlasting sweet-pea, we find that, as so much of the leaf is converted into tendrils to enable this handsome plant to climb over the hedges and thickets, the stem is made four-winged with leaf-matter, to ensure the due performance of the leaf function. Now parts called stipules are present in this whole tribe, and, like all other parts of these plants, they vary in form, size, and markings, and hence afford important aid in the discrimination of species. Again, the old furze-bush will have its leaves converted into spines, though the seedling started with a trifoliate leaf. Points like these, however, though most interesting to the student of vegetable physiology, are beyond the scope of the present work. Like every other point connected with this interesting natural order of plants, their uses and properties are greatly varied, and perhaps variable. The Sennas are renowned for their medicinal properties, being in some kinds aromatic and purgative. A powerful aroma is given off from the Melilots, similar to that of the well-known sweet vernal grass (_Anthoxanthum odoratum_), on which account it has been recommended to mix a little of their seeds with clovers, or to cultivate separate patches of either the white or the yellow Melilot to place here and there, sandwich-wise, in the clover hay-rick.