YELLOW MOUNTAIN OXYTROPIS 



•S 



The flowers are pale-yellow (hence the first part of llu- l'"ii!4lish 

 name), in paired and crowded terminal heads, tinged wiUi i)urple. 

 The bracts equal the calyx, and the keel is acute (hence the generic 

 name, from the Greek). The pods are finely hairy, with six or more 

 joints, netted, and imperfectly 2-celled. 



This plant is dwarf, at most 6 in. The flowers appear in {une 

 and July. The plant is perennial. 



The flower is conspicuous, yellow and purple, with a tulnilar calyx, 

 and a general arrangement of 

 pans much as in Lotus, but 

 the petals have long claws 

 or stalks, the carina or keel 

 is erect and has a recurved 

 tooth at the tip, and the 

 upper tenth stamen is free for 

 insertion of the insect's pro- 

 boscis. The stigma is minute, 

 and the ovule is stalkless. 



Seeds of this plant are 

 dispersed by the plant's own 

 mechanism. The pod is 

 2-celled, and by contraction 

 the seeds are thrown from 

 it to short distances by an 

 explosive motion. 



Being a rock plant, this 

 plant grows on a rock soil 

 derived from older barren 

 schistose or granitic rocks. 



A beetle, Coccinella 22-piiiic/ata, a moth, Xy/ina coi/s/>ici//aris, and 

 a fly, Cecidoniyia giraiicii, feed on the plant. 



The name Oxytropis is from the Greek, oxvs, sharp, tropis, keel, in 

 allusion to the narrow keel. The second Latin name refers to the 

 habitat, in fields. 



Essential Specific Characters: — 



85. Oxytropis campestris, D.C. — Stem woody, leaflets lanceolate, 

 leaves as long as flower-stalks, erect, downy, flowers yellow, purplish, 

 pods hairy. 



Vfi.i.ow Mountain Oxvtropks (Oxylrupis annpestris) 



