|_Root_ descending, but|_Root_ tapering with |_Root_ as 2. | |considerably branched.|lateral branches. | | | | | | |_Whole plant_ more or |_Whole plant_, smooth,|_Whole plant_, | |less clothed with |compared with 1, still|remarkable for its | |silky hairs. |more or less hairy. |hairy leaves and | | | |generally smooth round| | | |stems. | | | | | |Height from 5 to 8 |Height 16 inches. |Height 18 inches. | |inches. | | | +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+ Now, although the study of the characters, as here laid down with the specimens in our hand, may render it tolerably easy to distinguish the three forms here described, yet it must be confessed that whether we examine a series of the wilder plants from different positions, or different samples of the cultivated broad-leaved clovers, we shall find great variations; the principal of these will be discussed in another chapter: we may here, then, for the present leave this difficult subject of how to distinguish cow-grass and broad-leaved or red clover, with the observation that the common red clover is uniformly in flower two or three weeks before the other. 2. _Trifolium medium_ (see Plate)—Zigzag Trefoil—gets its English name from the peculiar bends in its stem, which being at alternate sides, make up the zigzag outline. The stems are rounded—not channelled,—mostly of a purple colour, and clothed with short hairs. The leaves are smooth, with elliptical—not emarginate—leaflets, sometimes, but seldom, with the white lunulate spot. The calyx is smooth. The heads of flowers are solitary, on very short footstalks; they are of a bright pinkish red hue, and not of the lilac colour of the common clover. [Illustration: Trifolium medium. Zigzag Trefoil.]