voL.1v.] Contributions to Western Botany. 25 
- acharacter of great weight so far as my knowledge of the genus 
goes, yet it may be variable in the southern and hot regions. 
Astragalus fastidiosus (Kell.) Greene. Phaca fastidia 
Kell. Hesperian iv, 145. I doubt if this is a valid species. 
It is too near 4. curtipes, and all of the species given in the 
Botany of California along with 4. curtipes are founded on weak 
distinctions. This species is like its relatives, not only inclined 
to be shrubby at base but most manifestly so. The leaflets are 
two to six or more lines long, obovate to almost linear, obtuse 
or retuse, narrowed at base and about nineteen; peduncles at 
least six inches long; calyx teeth shorter than the tube or not 
longer; pod semi-ovate, narrowed but not acuminate at base, 
apex acuminate or rather short-pointed, incurved; stems densely 
white-hairy; leaves almost glabrous to white-pubescent. 
Described from type collected on Cedros Island, by E..L. Greene. 
Astragalus pachypus, Greene. This most distinct and very 
_ interesting species would be referred to the 4. wudus section if 
it were not almost two-celled. This frequent finding of plants 
that destroy all our notions of classification into Astragalus 
proper and Phaca, leads one to hope that the division of the pod 
will take a minor place, so that species that are otherwise related 
may be grouped together and not widely separated, as they are at 
present in the common methods of classification. In addition to 
the published description I find that the pod is very much 
-laterally compressed and is one-celled at the apex. 
Astragalus collinus, (Dougl.) var. Californicus, Gray. A. 
Californicus Greene, Bull. Cal. Acad., iii, 157. This plant 
reminds one forcibly of 4. Drummond? in habit. It is erect; 
leaves without a petiole to speak of, two to three inches long; 
leaflets about ten pairs, set very close together, three-quarters of 
an inch long, obtuse or emarginate; peduncles about three times 
as long as the leaves; calyx campanulate or occasionally very 
shortly cylindric, tube two lines long, one and one-half lines 
wide, teeth one-half a line long and broadly triangular, 
calyx rather sparsely short-hairy, yellowish; legume vetch-like, 
one and one-half inches long and two and one-half lines wide, 
acuminate at base, on a stipe four lines long, sharply acute at 
