3 
TERMS USED IN ASTRAGALUS. 
The flowers consist of banner which is the upper petal; wings 
(the two side petals), and keel which is the inner petal and is com- 
posed of two petals united along the lower edge. The banner is almost 
always grooved up the middle which is called the groove or. sulcus. 
The middle of the banner usually has a white spot which is variously 
Shaped and veined. The claws of the petals are those parts inclosed 
in the calyx and differ from the expanded parts called the blades. Wher 
not otherwise stated the claw is not included in measurements of the 
length of the petals but is included in the length of the flowers. The 
wings are always narrow and for the most part are concave or convex 
to the keel and rarely united to its base, the tips mostly are longer than 
the keel and one or both either flaring or hooked over the end, some 
times one flares and the other is bent over the keel, sometimes they 
are twisted from a vertical to a horizontal position at the end of keel 
and then resemble wings, they are mostly entire, but sometimes notch- 
ed below the middle or rarely cleft or lobed in the forms approaching 
Oxytropis. The keel tip is mostly triangular and inclined to boat- 
shaped or lunate (moon-shaped), someiimes produced sharply on the 
upper end, but not in the middle of the end which is a character of 
Oxytropis. The calyx varies from tapering at base to truncate or 
very oblique and even with a knob on the upper corner, sometimes 
fleshy-thickened at tip of pedicel, the upre-side is often deeper cleft 
than the lower. The pods are formed of two valves united by their 
edges called sutures, the upper edge is the ventral (the one that 
bears the seed) and is sometimes inverted by the twisting of the 
pedicel, the lower is the dorsal and is mostly a mere line. The lowest 
developed forms like A. campestris have the simple vetch-like pods 
with both sutures mere ribs or lines, others have the ventral suture 
variously thickened and often raised like a keel, it is seldom depressed 
except in some. Inflati where it is both depressed and even produced 
somewhat as a partition from which the seeds hang. When the 
pod is grooved at all it is mostly along the dorsal suture which is 
variously impressed forming a fold, in some forms this fold extends to 
the ventral suture simply as a fold, at other times its sides are 
united to form a partition which rarely is. completely united to the 
ventral suture and making the ped wholly 2-celled, very rarely does 
it lose its identity as a union of the two sides of the fold; when the pod 
is grooved it is called sulcate. It is called inflated when the cavity is 
larger than the mature seeds. When the pod has a stalk on which it 
is raised partly or wholly out of the calyx this is called the stipe. The 
= cross-section of the pod as to shape is supposed to rest on the dorsal 
as its base. The seeds of the Astragali differ but little and are reni- 
- form and attached along the ventral suture, ey es along 
y e > middle of the pod end not: from base to xu == 
