snail-horns

Updated: May 18, 2025

There is another plant, Medicago polymorpha, which may be said to assume a great variety of shapes; as the seed-vessels resemble sometimes snail-horns, at other times caterpillars with or without long hair upon them; by which means it is probable they sometimes elude the depredations of those insects.

Erasmus Darwin - The Botanic Garden. Part II.: Containing the Loves of the Plants. a Poem.: With Philosophical Notes.