It is annual [354] and erect and more or less hairy, and has
stouter leaves than other kinds of clover. It has oblong or cylindrical
heads with bright crimson flowers, and may be considered as one of the
most showy types. As an annual it has some manifest advantages over the
perennial species, especially in giving its harvest of hay at other
seasons of the year.
I found some stray quaternate leaves of this plant some years ago, and
tried to win from them, through culture and selection, a race that would
be as rich in these anomalies as the red clover. But the utmost care and
the most rigid selection, and all the attention I could afford, failed
to produce any result. It is now ten years since I commenced this
experiment, and more than once I have been willing to give it up. Last
year (1903) I cultivated some hundreds of selected plants, but though
they yielded a few more instances of the desired anomaly than in the
beginning, no trace of a truly rich race could be discovered. The
experimental evidence of this failure shows at least that stray
"four-leaves" may occur, which do not indicate the existence of a true
"four-" or "five-leaved" variety.
This conception seems destined to become of great value in the
appreciation of anomalies, as they are usually found, either in the wild
state [355] or in gardens.
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