521 



densely hirsute with spreading brownish hair which conceals a fine 

 surface pubescence and passes into a close hoary pubescence in the 

 racemes ; in immature plants the hairiness is very dense and sub- 

 appressed, the young branches and racemes densely canescent- 

 pilose. Leaves bright green, numerous, mostly spreading, but 

 often the lower leaves are deflexed, those above spreading, the 

 upper ones rapidly diminished in size and ascending or erect, 

 mostly oblong to narrowly-oblong in general outline, 4'-! 2' long, 

 2'_7i^'wide; leaflets commonly ii-i/.or sometimes as many as 

 twenty-three on the narrowed lowermost leaves, strongly-nerved and 

 rugose, minutely petiolulate or sessile, spreading, the distal pair 

 obliquely contiguous to the odd one and often decurrent on the 

 leafstalk, the lower pairs frequently somewhat alternate, lanceolate, 

 sometimes narrowly lanceolate, tapering to either end, acutely ser- 

 rate, i'-4%' long, 4"-i4" wide, a common size being 2^'X8"-9", 

 above obscurely hispidulous to glabrous, usually finely scabrous near 

 the edges, the margins minutely ciliolate, paler below and thinly to 

 softly pubescent, with longer appressed or spreading often brown- 

 ish hairs on the nerves and sprinkled with minute shining glan- 

 dules. Leafstalk villous, tomentose-pubescent on the upper side. 

 Interposed leaflets crowded, mostly 4-5 pairs except in the lowest 

 interspaces, often subopposite, mostly narrowly oblong and sessile 

 by a broad base, the main pair sharply serrate to below the mid- 

 dle, separated by only a minute pair from the succeeding pair of 

 leaflets, the others gradually smaller, all but the most minute 

 sharply-toothed. Stipules, except the reduced lower ones, 

 broadly cordate-amplexicaule, sometimes i' broad, the outer mar- 

 gin serrate or cut-serrate, deeply cleft at the tip into a narrow at- 

 tenuate lobe sometimes i' long, which stands either abruptly 

 erect against the stem or is bent sharply backward. Racemes 

 glandulose beneath the pubescence, mostly erect or sharply as- 

 cending, \o'-2i' long, many-flowered. Flowers Z"-S" broad, 

 rather pale yellow with thin narrow petals ; anthers small with 

 broad connective. Bracts very small, pilose-pubescent, the lobes 

 filiform ; bracteoles very small, trifid. Flower-buds very small, 

 somewhat obovoid and subtruncate, slightly mamillate, somewhat 

 glandulose, sepals ovate-oblong, acute. Fruit small, nodding on 

 slightly spreading pedicels, i"-2" wide and long, minutely glandu- 

 lose; the slender stipe-like base slightly strigose, the body subglo- 

 bose, short-turbinate or hemispheric below the bristles, the disk 

 much elevated ; bristles medial on the fruit, the outer short and re- 

 flexed, the innermost erect, equalling or exceeding the broad sub- 

 truncate calycular process. Base of the stem bulbous-thickened in 

 the form of an oblong tuber sometimes nearly i' in diameter. Roots 

 not tuberous-thickened. 



Comes into flower from the middle to the end of July, continu- 

 ing to bloom till about the middle of September. 



