1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sainfoin

SAINFOIN (Onobrychis sativa) in botany is a low-growing perennial plant with a woody rootstock whence proceed the stems, which are covered with fine hairs and bear numerous long pinnate leaves, the segments of which are elliptic. The flowers are borne in closing pyramidal or cylindrical clusters on the end of long stalks.

Sainfoin (Onobrychis sativa). 1, Fruit, nat. size.

Each flower is about half an inch in length with lanceolate calyx-teeth shorter than the corolla, which latter is papilionaceous, pink, with darker stripes of the same colour. The indehiscent pods or legumes are fattened from side to side, wrinkled, somewhat sickle-shaped and crested, and contain a single olive-brown seed shaped like a small bean. In Great Britain the plant is a native of the calcareous districts of the southern counties, but elsewhere it is considered as an escape from cultivation. It is native throughout the whole of Central Europe and Siberia; but it does not seem to have been cultivated in Great Britain till 1651, when it was introduced from France or French Flanders, its French name being retained. Alphonse de Candolle (Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 104) considers that the cultivation of sainfoin originated in the south of France as late perhaps as the 15th century. It is grown as a forage plant, being especially well adapted for dry limestone soils. It has about the same nutritive value as lucerne, and is esteemed for milch cattle and for sheep in winter. Besides the common form, a second known as giant sainfoin is met with in cultivation, being more rapid in its growth.