214 
Chloridae is another close relative of this species growing in a still 
more arid region. 
174 Astragalus amphioxys Gray Proc. Am. Acad. 13 336 (1878) 
This is a very variable species. The type has pods acuminate at both 
ends, and the tip tapering into a long and curved subulate beak, the 
pods often bent into a half circle, 5-8 mm. wide and high, or when 
much obcompressed 8 mm. wide and 2 mm. high, the cross-section 
then being oblong when fresh, and linear when dry, but cross-section 
normally nearly round when fresh and triquetrous when dry, that is, 
triangular-cordate, when fresh the surface is ashy and even, when dry. 
it is smoothish from ventral suture about to the middle and then 
strongly reticulate-corrugated to the dorsal suture and along it from 
end to end, when fresh neither suture is evident but both are very 
thin and sharp and raised externally along the edges and much thick- 
ened underneath when dry, when pods are only a little arcuate and 
scarcely sulcate dorsally the cross-section is inclined to be 4-angled as 
in A. cymboides and Missonriensis, and with the same rounded sides, 
but normally it is so sulcate dorsally as to be triquetrous, walls 
about 2 mm. thick, neither the outer nor inner skin woody when fresh, 
thin-cartilaginous when dry, not mottled normally but green, rarely 
old pods show mottling. Flowers in the type rather narrow and near- 
ly 3 cm long, loosely short-spicate. rarely 10. Banner oval, gently 
arched beyond the calyx tips from 10-60 degrees or rarely more, with 
sides reflexed 2-3 mm. wide below the middle giving it an oblong to 
triangular outline, groove very wide and shallow and often 7 mm. wide, 
white spot truncate above to obcordate and oblong to cuneate and 
rágged above with little purple veinlets and stippled, blade darkest 
near the white spot and fading out toward the edges. Wingslinear to 
oblong-lanceolate, rounded and obtuse, oblique, ascending, cóncave to 
keel but turned out at its tip and horizontal and with their tips de- 
clined and conniving over the kee!, 2 mm. wide, 1-2 mm. longer than 
keel 4 mm. shorter than banner. Keel about 7 mm. long, abruptly and 
a little arched above the middie to erect, or nearly so, the tip trian- 
gular and obtuse but not much rounded, 3 mm. high. Calyx tube 7-10 
mm. long and 4 mm. wide, the upper side arcuate a little, the lower 
side straight, obliquely triangular at base and attached in line with it 
and cleft deeper above, a little narrowed at tip and somewhat lat- 
erally flattened, cylindrical, ashy or variably nigrescent with close- 
pressed hairs, the triangular-subulate teeth equal, a third to one 
fourth as long as the tube, ascending. Pedicels almost none, very 
stout. Bracts triangular, about 1 cm. long, hairy. Peduncles 5-15 cm. 
long, rarely as long as the leaves, rather stout and Strict, the fruiting 
rachis, short and pods few. Leaves I-1.5 dm. long, narrow, the leaf- 
rachis rather longer than the petiole. Leaflets elliptical to oval, in- 
clined to be acute at both ends, rarely obovate and diamond-shaped, 
petiolulate, rather distant, 5-10 pairs, nottmuchthickened. Stems rather 
slender, rarely. 1 dm. long, zigzag. Stipules rarely ove rlapping, deltoid 
to triaugular, seldom 1 cm long, adnate, not connate. Plants mostly 
biecnials but blooming the first year as winter annuals, with straight 
and fleshy tap root which is elongated and slender and which at tip is 
branched into a few crowns. A very early bloomer and not continu- 
ing long. Pods easily scattered by the wind, opening both at tip 
and base for a short distance. This species though with less easily 
blown pods than the former two species is commot througout the Na- 
vajo Basin from the base of the Uintas to Steamboat Springs Colora- | 
do and southward to thh Mogollons and the Little Colorado atleast to 
Winslow, and extending over on the Rio Grande but rare as far as El 
. Paso Texas, throughout the plateau of northern Arizona and down its. 
southern flanks to Prescott and around the western flanks, also ex- 
ron, down the Colorado through the Grand Canon and westward | 
the Charleston Mts. and northward to Moapa Nevada and — 
