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ASTRAGALUS TRAGACANTHA. ORD. XXIV. Papilionacee. 41} 
: footstalk, or midrib: the flowers are large, of a pale yellow colour, 
and terminate the branches in close clusters: the calyx is tubular, 
and divided at the rim into five sharp teeth: the corolla-is of the 
papilionaceous kind, consisting of a vexillum or upper petal, which 
is longer than the others, straight, blunt, reflected at the sides, 
and notched at the end; two ale or lateral petals, which are of an 
oblong form, and a carina or keel-shaped under-petal: the fila- 
ments are ten, nine of which are united, and one separate: the 
antherz are smal] and round: the germen is long and roundish: 
the style tapering, and furnished with a blunt stigma: the seeds 
are kidney-shaped, and contained in a two-celled pod. It flowers 
from May till July. 
This plant was cultivated in England in the time of Parkinson, 
(1640): it isa native of Asiatic Turkey, and the Southern parts of 
Europe, particularly of Italy, Sicily, and Crete. Tournefort dis- 
covered it growing plentifully about Mount Ida,* where he ex- 
amined the plant in the month of July, when both the bark and 
wood were found distended with gum Tragacanth, which by the 
intensity of the sun’s heat forces its way through the bark, and 
concretes into irregular lumps, or long vermicular piéces, bent 
into a variety of shapes, and Jarger’or smaller in proportion to its 
quantity, and the size of the wounds from whence it issues. This 
gum is imported here chiefly from Turkey: it varies in its colour; 
but that most esteemed it white, semitransparent, dry, yet some- 
what soft to the touch. 
M. de la Billardiére’s late account” of the production of this guny 
differs in some respects from that of Tournefort’s. He says, that 
he visited Mount Lebanon in August, 1786, the season when the 
gum ‘Tragacanth is collectea: he then found the species of As- 
tragalus which afforded it, to be different from that figured and 
* Voyage, T. i. p. 21. 
~* See Description d’une nouvelle espece d’astragale, qui produit aw Libaw fr 
gomme adragant, Hist. de l’ Acad. R. des Scien. du 16 Dec. 1788. et Rozier, Obs. 
sur la physique, pour Janvier, 1790. 
