George. What a delightful smell!

Harry. Charming! It is sweeter than Mr. Essence’s shop.

Tutor. Do you know whence it comes?

Geo. Oh—it is from the bean-field on the other side of the hedge, I suppose.

Tut. It is. This is the month in which beans are in blossom. See the stalks are full of their black and white flowers.

Har. I see peas in blossom, too, on the other side of the field.

Geo. You told us some time ago of grass and corn flowers, but they make a poor figure compared to these.

Tut. They do. The glory of a cornfield is when it is ripe; but peas and beans look very shabbily at that time. But suppose we take a closer view of these blossoms. Go you, George, and bring me a bean-plant; and you, Harry, a pea.

Tut. Now let us sit down and compare them. Do you think these flowers much alike?

Har. Oh no—very little.

Geo. Yes—a good deal!

Tut. A little and a good deal! How can that be? Come let us see. In the first place, they do not much resemble each other in size or colour.

Geo. No—but I think they do in shape.

Tut. True. They are both irregular flowers, and have the same distribution of parts. They are of the kind called papilionaceous, from papilio, the Latin word for a butterfly, which insect they are thought to resemble.

Geo. The pea does a little, but not much.

Tut. Some do much more than these. Well—you see first a broad leaf standing upright, but somewhat bent back; this is named the standard. On each side are two narrower, called the wings. The under side of the flower is formed of a hollow part resembling a boat: this is called a keel.

Geo. It is very like a boat indeed!

Tut. In some kinds, however, it is divided in the middle, and so is like a boat split in two. All these parts have claws which unite to form a tube, set in a calyx, or flower-cup. This tube, you observe, is longer in the bean than in the pea, and the proportions of the other parts are somewhat different; but the parts themselves are found in both.

Har. So they are. I think them alike now.

Tut. That is the consequence of examining closely. Now let us strip off all the leaves of this bean-flower but the keel. What do you think this boat contains?

Geo. It must be those little things you told us are in all flowers.

Har. The chives and pistil.

Tut. Right. I will draw down the keel gently, and you shall see them.

Har. How curious!

Tut. Here are a number of chives joining in their bodies, so as to make a round tube, or cylinder, through which comes out a crooked thread, which is the pistil. I will now with a pin slit this cylinder. What do you see within it?

Geo. Somewhat like a little pod.

Tut. True—and to show you that it is a pod, I will open it, and you shall see the seeds within it.

Har. What tiny things! Is this, then, what makes the bean-pod afterward?

Tut. It is. When the blossom drops, this seed-vessel grows bigger and bigger, and at length hardens as the seeds grow ripe, becomes black and shrivelled, and would burst and shed the seeds, if they were not gathered.

Geo. I have seen several burst pods of our sweet-peas under the wall, with nothing left in them.

Tut. And it is common for the field peas and beans to lose a great part of the seeds while they are getting in.

Har. At the bottom of this pea-stalk there are some pods set already.

Tut. Open one. You see that the pod is composed of two shells, and that all the seeds are fastened to one side of the pod, but alternately to each shell.

Geo. Is it the same in beans?

Tut. Yes, and in all other pods of the papilionaceous flowers. Well—this is the general structure of a very numerous and useful class of plants, called the leguminous or podded. Of these, in this country, the greater part are herbaceous, with some shrubs. In the warm climates there are also tall trees. Many of the leguminous plants afford excellent nourishment for man and beast; and their pods have the name of pulse.

Geo. I have read of persons living on pulse, but I did not know what it meant before.

Tut. It is frequently mentioned as part of the diet of abstemious persons. Of this kind, we eat peas, beans, and kidney or French beans, of all which there are a variety of sorts cultivated. Other nations eat lentils and lupines, which are of this class; with several others.

Har. I remember our lupines in the garden have flowers of this kind, with pods growing in clusters. We only cultivate them for the colour and smell.

Tut. But other nations eat them. Then, all the kinds of clover, or trefoil, which are so useful in feeding cattle, belong to this tribe; as do likewise vetches, sanfoin, and lucerne, which are used for the same purpose. These principally compose what are usually, though improperly, called, in agriculture, artificial grasses.

Geo. Clover flowers are as sweet as beans; but do they bear pods?

Tut. Yes; very short ones, with one or two seeds in each. But there is a kind called nonsuch, with a very small yellow flower, that has a curious twisted pod like a snail-shell. Many of the leguminous plants are weak, and cannot support themselves; hence they are furnished with tendrils, by means of which they clasp neighbouring plants, and run up them. You know the garden-peas do so on the sticks which are set in the rows with them. Some kind of vetches run in this manner up the hedges, which they decorate with their long bunches of blue or purple flowers. Tares, which are some of the slenderest of the family, do much mischief among corn by twining round it and choking it.

Har. What are they good for, then?

Tut. They are weeds or noxious plants with respect to us; but doubtless they have their uses in the creation. Some of our papilionaceous plants, however, are able enough to shift for themselves; for gorse or furze is of the number.

Geo. What, that prickly bush all covered over with yellow flowers, that overruns our common?

Tut. Then there is broom, a plant as big, but without thorns, and with larger flowers. This is as frequent as furze in some places.

Har. I know it grows in abundance in the broom-field.

Tut. It does; but the naming of fields and places from it is a proof that it is not so common as the other.

Geo. We have some bushes of white broom in the shrubbery, and some trees of Spanish broom.

Tut. True. You have also a small tree which flowers early, and bears a great many pendent branches of yellow blossoms, that look peculiarly beautiful when intermixed with the purple lilacs.

Har. I know it—laburnum.

Tut. Right. This is one of our class of plants too. Then there is a large tree, with delicate little leaves, protected by long thorns, and bearing bunches of white papilionaceous flowers.

Geo. I know which you mean, but I cannot tell the name.

Tut. It is the bastard-acacia, or locust-tree, a native of America. Thus, you see, we have traced this class of plants through all sizes, from the trefoil that covers the turf, to a large tree. I should not, however, forget two others, the licorice, and the tamarind. The licorice, with the sweet root of which you are well acquainted, grows in the warmer countries, especially Spain, but is cultivated in some parts of England, especially at Pomfret, in Yorkshire. The tamarind is a large spreading tree growing in the West Indies, and valued for its shade, as well as for the cooling acid pulp of its pods, which are preserved with sugar and sent over to us.

Har. I know them very well.

Tut. Well—do you think now you shall both be able to discover a papilionaceous flower when you meet with it again?

Geo. I believe I shall, if they are all like these we have been examining.

Tut. They have all the same parts, though variously proportioned. What are these?

Geo. There is the standard and two wings.

Har. And the keel.

Tut. Right—the keel sometimes cleft into two, and then it is an irregular five-leaved flower. The chives are generally ten, of which one stands apart from the rest. The pistil single, and ending in a pod. Another circumstance common to most of this tribe, is, that their leaves are winged, or pinnated, that is, having leaflets set opposite each other, upon a middle rib. You see this structure in these bean-leaves. But in the clovers there are only two opposite leaflets, and one terminating; whence their name of trefoil, or three-leaf. What we call a club on cards is properly a clover-leaf, and the French call it trefle, which means the same.

Geo. I think this tribe of plants almost as useful as the grasses.

Tut. They perhaps come the next in utility: but their seeds, such as beans and peas, are not quite such good nourishment as corn, and bread cannot be made of them.

Geo. But clover is better than grass for cattle.

Tut. It is more fattening, and makes cows yield plenty of fine milk. Well—let us march.