Onobrychis
(the old Greek name used by Dioscorides, derived from onos, the ass, and brycho, to bray; said to be the favourite food of the ass, who brayed in his eagerness to get at it). Saintfoin. ORD. Leguminosae. A rather large genus of greenhouse or hardy, unarmed herbs or sub-shrubs, or rarely very spiny small shrubs. Upwards of seventy species have been described, not more than fifty of which are really distinct as such; they inhabit Europe, North Africa, and extra-tropical, mostly Western, Asia. Flowers purplish, pink, or white, disposed in axillary pedunculate spikes or racemes. Pods compressed, semi-orbiculate or orbiculate-circinate. Leaves impari-pinnate; leaflets entire, exstipellate. The plants are of easy culture in a deep sandy-loam soil. Seeds should be sown, in spring, in their permanent quarters. The only species calling for mention here are the following; they are hardy perennial herbs.
O. Caput-galli (cock's-head). fl. flesh-colour, in few-flowered spikes. July. Pod slightly pubescent. l. oblong or cuneate-obovate, mucronate, pubescent. Stem erect or diffuse. h. 1 1/2ft. South Europe, 1731. (S. F. G. 723, under name of Hedysarum Caput-galli.) O. radiata (rayed). fl. yellowish-white, lined with red, and spotted with yellow on the standard; calyx (and pod) villous; spikes cylindrical. June. l. ovate, obtuse, mucronate, hairy beneath. Stem erect, softly hispid. h. 1 1/2ft. Iberia, 1818. (B. R. 1847, 37.)
O. sativa (cultivated). Common Saintfoin. fl. variegated, on elongated spikes. Summer. Pod pubescent. l., leaflets elliptic-oblong, mucronate. Stem erect. h. 2ft. to 3ft. West and South Europe (Britain), North Asia. (J. F. A. 352; Sy. En. B. 381.)
O. s. montana (mountain). fl. purplish-rose, on short spikes; keel longer than the vexillum. Summer. Pod denticulate at back. l. cuneate-lanceolate, mucronulate. Alps of Europe, 1817. A very pretty and rather decumbent-growing rock plant.