ilO DliDSLPHIA. BECANBRIiL. 



and pedunculate, shorter than the leaves, very few-flower- 

 ed. H AB In the shady forests of Ohio, Kentucky and Ten- 

 nessee, (common around Lexington, Kentucky.) A very 

 singular and distinct species, with small, expanding flow- 

 ers, which are uniformly white Obs. Hoot apparently 

 creeping, sending up short filiform weak stems at small 

 intervals; stems about a span high (rather resembling the 

 ascending branches of a humifuse plant), petioles 2 or 3 

 inches, stipules very minute, partial ones obliterated, la- 

 teral leaflets oblique, central one dilated, on both surfaces 

 a little hirsute, paler beneathf length about 2 inches, 

 breadth one and a half Raceme long pedunculate, soli- 

 tary and terminal, bearing no more than from 4 to 8 wliite 

 flowers! the keel of which is commonly expanded; bractes 

 very minute by 3's; flowers by pairs; calix nearly equally 

 5-toothed. Of the fruit, I am ignorant. The only species 

 to which the present appears to bear any aflinity is H. ax- 

 illare of Jamaica. 16. lineatum 17. rotnmV folium. 



18. * boreale. Caulescent, subdccumbent, leaves pin- 

 rate (7 or 8 pair), leaflets oblong-obovate, pardy vllous; 

 racemes long pedunculate, axillary, stipules sheathing, 

 subulate; articulations of the loment nearly round, and 

 • rugose. //. (ilpimmP iMich. Fl. Am. 2. p. 74. Hab. In 

 arid and denudated soils around Fort Mandan, on the 

 banks of the Missouri. Flowering in June and July. 

 Flowers of a fine red and numerous; common petiole very 

 short; calix subulate, wings of the corolla short. 



This very numerous and heteromorphous genus, con- 

 sisting of more than 130 species, is principally indigenous 

 to India, and America in both hemispheres, but particu- 

 larly the Northern; there are also species in the southern 

 extremity of Africa and in Japan, a few in Europe, Sibe- 

 ria, Northern Africa, and the Levant, but with pinnated 

 leaves, and in the Onobry chides producing 1-seeded le- 

 gumes. Amidst this vast family H- gyrans has long been ce- 

 lebrated for the spontaneous motion of its leaves, which 

 tmdulate as if in agitation, without the assistance of excite- 

 ment; my friend Ur. Baldwyn, late of Savannah, an inde- 

 fatigable botanist, and an accurate observer, informed me, 

 that the same spontaneous motion is evinced by Hedysa- 

 rum cuspidattimt H. bracte^sum of Michaux; there is also 

 reason to suspect the same circumstance in H. Ixvigatum. 



509» ZORNIA. Gmelin, Michaux, 



Calix campanulate, bilabiate. Corolla infe- 

 rior. Vexillum cordate, revolute. Anthers 5 



