PEA FAMILY 381 



equaling or exceeding the leaves, bearing rather dense sub-cylindric spikes % to 

 lYz inches long; flowers 5^/^ lines long; corolla white, with strongly beaked keel; 

 pods terete, incompletely 2-celled by intrusion of the seed-bearing suture. 



Rocky slopes, 11,000 to 12,200 feet : east wall of the southern Sierra Nevada in 

 Inyo Co. ; White Mts. North to eastern Oregon and Alaska, east to Wyoming and 

 Quebec. July. 



Locs. — Sierra Nevada, e. slope : Upper Lake, Baker Creek, Duran 1815 ; Coyote Creek promon- 

 tory, Green Lake region, Peirson 599. White Mts.: Sheep Mt., Jepson 7318. 



Refs.— OxYTROPis visciDA Nutt.; T. & G. Fl. 1:341 (1838), tj-pe loc. "Rocky Mts. near 

 sources of the Oregon", Nuttall; Jepson, Man. 579 (1925). 



4. 0. deflexa DC. var. culminis Jepson var. n. Plants 3 to 9 inches high, the 

 leaves and peduncles congested on the branched root-crown; peduncles naked, 

 ascending, 3^/2 to 7 inches long; herbage silky-villous; leaves lYo to 2y2 inches long; 

 leaflets 19 to 25, oblong-lanceolate, lYo to 2i/^ lines long; fruiting racemes 1 to 2 

 inches long; bracts lanceolate, 1 line long; flowers 3^2 lines long; cah^ with long 

 white and short black hairs intermixed, its tube 1^/4 lines long, the teeth linear- 

 subulate, 1 line long: corolla whitish, purplish-tipped; pods deflexed, oblong, ab- 

 ruptly short-beaked, 5 to 7 lines long, 11/9 to 1% lines wide, black- and white-hairy, 

 nearly completely 2-celled by the intrusion of the ventral suture. — (Plantae caespi- 

 tosae caudice ramoso congesto ; herbae serieato-lanatae ; folia 19-25-foliolata, unc. 

 11/^-21/^ longa; cal}^ pubescens, capillibus nigribus et albis intermixtis, tubo lin. 

 11/4 longo, dentibus lineari-subulatis, lin. 1 longis; legumina deflexa, albo- et nigri- 

 pubescentia, oblonga, abrupte brevirostrata, lin. 5-7 longa, fere sutura ventralis 

 intrusa bilocularia. ) 



Moist meadows, 9000 to 9500 feet : White Mts., Inyo Co. East to Wyoming and 

 Colorado. June-Aug. 



Note on occurrence and habit. — This variety, the reduced alpine form, is kno^vvn in California 

 only from the White Mts., eastern Inyo Co., where it has been collected on Cottonwood Creek 

 by Victor Duran (no. 1650, type). The species, inhabiting Siberia and North America from 

 Alaska to New Mexico, with its branched leafy stems, is usually much taller, or even if con- 

 gested, the leaves and peduncles exceed in size those of the California plant. 



Refs. — OxTTROPis DEFLEXA DC. Astrag. 96 (1802). Astragalus deflexus Pall. Act. Acad. 

 Petrop. 3'':268, pi. 15 (1783), type from s. Siberia. Var. ctjlminis Jepson. 



25. OLNEYAGray 



Tree with thin scaly bark, the branches armed with stout spines in pairs below 

 the leaves. Leaves pinnate, with entire leaflets. Flowers few, in axillary racemes. 

 Banner orbicular, deeply emarginate. Stamens diadelphous (9 and 1). Style 

 bearded above. Pod thick, 1 to 5-seeded, tardily dehiscent. — Species 1. (S. T. 

 Olney, 1812-1878, Rhode Island botanist.) 



1. 0. tesota Gray. Desert Ironwood. Broad-crowned tree 15 to 25 feet high ; 

 leaves l^/o to 3 inches long; leaflets 5 to 8 pairs, cuneate-oblong or -obovate, 3 to 10 

 lines long; spines 1 to 4 lines long; racemes loose, I/2 to 1^4 inches long; flowers 

 violet-purple, 4 to 5 lines long; pods oblong, more or less pubescent and often pro- 

 vided with tack-shaped glands, 14 to 3 inches long, 1 to 8-seeded, more or less con- 

 stricted between the seeds; seeds ovoid-globose, 4 to 6 lines long. 



Desert valleys, chiefly in washes or about springs, 100 to 500 feet : Colorado 

 Desert. East to Arizona and south to Sonora and Lower California. May. 



Note on habit. — Olneya tesota, one of the finest and, save for Populus fremontii, the largest 

 tree in the desert, is marked by its heavy foliage with a blue-green aspect reminding the traveler 

 of the hue of Quereus douglasii. The crowns are usually tall with distinct trunks. The site of 

 Yaqui Well in the western Colorado Desert is marked by a small grove of fairly large Desert 

 Ironwood trees. One, 30 feet high, has a trunk diameter of 21 inches at 2 feet; another, 32 

 feet high, has a trunk diameter of 17 inches at 1 foot, both trees having been measured in 1920. 



