(A) Alfalfa; Lucerne (Medicago sativa) (European) is found growing wild in waste places or fields most anywhere in our range. It makes an excellent fodder for cattle and will grow in waste, sandy places where it is impossible to raise crops of hay.
The stalk is smooth, slender, branching, and erect; it grows from 1 to 2 feet high. The leaves are three-parted, on long, slender stems with narrow stipules at their base. The purple flowers grow in short, loose racemes at the ends of the slender branches; the seed-pod is curiously twisted or coiled.
(B) Cow Vetch; Blue Vetch (Vicia Cracca) is a trailing herb with a weak, angled stem; it is common on the borders of thickets or the edges of cultivated fields. The stem grows from 2 to 3 feet long and climbs over grasses or low brush by means of small, slender tendrils at the ends of the leaves.
The compound leaves are made up of twenty to thirty small, oval leaflets, each tipped with a tiny sharp-pointed bristle. The light violet-colored, bean-like flowers grow in one-sided racemes.
(A) Ground Nut; Wild Bean (Apios tuberosa) is an exceedingly beautiful climbing vine, attaining lengths of 4 or 5 feet, crawling over walls or fences, or twisting itself about shrubs or other plants. Its pear-shaped, tuberous root is edible, as every country boy knows.
The leaves of the Ground Nut are compounded of five, or sometimes seven, ovate-pointed leaflets; they are toothless, smooth, and light green. The flowers grow in dense, rounded clusters on slender stalks from between the angles of the leaves and the plant stem, and are maroon or lilac-brown. We find Ground Nut in bloom during August and September in damp ground, usually on the borders of swamps or wet meadows, from N. B. to Minn. and southward to the Gulf.
(B) Wild or Hog Peanut (Amphicarpa monoica)is a dainty, trailing vine 2 to 7 feet long. The delicate, light-green leaves are thrice compounded, on slender stems from the angles of which are small, drooping clusters of magenta-lilac blossoms. Other fruitful blossoms at the base of the plant develop into pear-shaped pods with single large seeds.
