85 
25. ZORNIA Gmelin. 
Perennial herbs, with palmately 2 or 4-foliolate leaves, sagittate sti- 
pules, yellow flowers in axillary large-bracted racemes, monadelphous 
stamens alternately shorter, and a compressed pod with 2 to 5 roundish 
hispid joints. 
1. Z. tetraphylla Michx. Prostrate, smooth or downy: leaflets 4, lanceolate or 
oblong-obovate: racemes 3 to 9-flowered, much longer than the leaves, the flowers 
distant and almost concealed by the large ovate bracts.—Extending from the Gulf 
States through eastern and southern Texas to the Rio Grande. The most western 
station recorded is in Gillespie County, 
26. DESMODIUM Desv. (TICK-TREFOIL. ) 
Perennial herbs, with pinnately 3-foliolate (rarely 1-foliolate) leaves 
with both stipules and stipels, white or purplish (often turning green) 
flowers in axillary or terminal often panicled racemes and 2 or 3 from 
each bract, diadelphous (9 and 1) stamens or monadelphous below, and 
a flat pod deeply lobed on the lower margin and separating into few 
or many flat reticulated joints (mostly roughened with minute hooked 
hairs, by which they adhere to animals or clothing). . 
* Pod stipitate: leaves 1-foliolate. 
1. D. Wrightii Gray. Stems slender, branching, puberulent, 3 to 6 dm. high: 
leaves short-petioled, the single leaflet membranaceous, veiny, oblong-ovate, sub- 
cordate at base, pale and minutely pubescent beneath, mucronulate, the larger 5 cm, 
long; stipules and stipels very small and subulate: racemes loose: pod 3 or 4- 
jointed, the joints inequilateral and oval, on a stipe as long as the stamineal tube.— 
From the Colorado near Austin to New Mexico, 
** Pod slightly if at all stipitate : leaves 3-foliolate. 
2. D. Neo-Mexicanum (iray. Slender, erect and branching, pubescent annual: 
leaflets linear, strongly and coarsely reticulated beneath, acutish and mucronulate, 
pilose beneath, especially at the margins, 2.5 to 3.em. long; stipules subulate aristate: 
flowers small: joints of the pod small (little over 2mm. in diameter), round and pu- 
berulent.—Mountain valleys near El Paso. Nearly glabrous forms oceur in contigu- 
ous New Mexico. 
3. D. Grahami Gray. Procumbent and slender, branching from a perennial root: 
leaflets round-ovate, bright green above, 2.5 to 3.5 em. long, clothed with a fine ap- 
pressed pubescence, which is shorter and sparse underneath : stipules fuscous, sub- 
ulate-acuminate and persistent: the numerous racemes at length elongated (the 
principal terminal one very much so) and sparsely flowered: pod deflexed, 4 or 5- 
jointed, the joints inequilateral and seabrous-puberulent.—On the mountains of the 
Limpia and westward into New Mexico. 
4. D. paniculatum DC. Nearly smooth throughout: stem slender, erect, and 
tall: leaflets oblong-lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, tapering to a blunt point, 
thin, 7.5 to 12.5 em. long: racemes much panicled: pod 3 to 5-jointed, the joints in- 
equilateral, triangular or half-rhombie or very unequal-sided rhomboidal.—San Pedro 
Valley and westward: doubtless elsewhere in Texas. 
5. D. spirale DC. Pubescent or glabrate: stem slender, angular and weak, 
rooting at base: leaflets ovate or lanceolate: racemes lax : flowers very small, green- 
ish, and variegated with purple: pod 2 to 8-jointed, the joints rhomboid-orbicular, 
hooked pubescent, very tortuous.—A Mexican species recently found in extreme 
western Texas, Limpia Cation (Nealley), 
