LEGUMINIFER®. 73 
of the last species, with from 6 to 10 flowers, which are rather 
larger, cream-colour tinged with very pale pinkish-lilac, with a 
purple blotch at the apex of the keel on the upper margin, leaving 
the apiculus which characterizes the genus ochreous. Pods % to 1 
inch long, more inflated than those of the preceding species, without | 
the imperfect dissepiment proceeding from the lower suture. Seeds 
maroon-coloured, but in other respects very similar. 
On the Continent this plant occurs with entirely ochreous 
flowers, and also another variety, cwrulea, in which the flowers are 
almost entirely bluish-purple. The British form belongs to the 
variety sordida. 
Pale-yellow Oxytropis. 
French, Oxytrope des Alpes. German, Behaarte Fahnwicke. 
GENUS XT7I—-ASTRAGALUS. Linn. 
Calyx bell-shaped or tubular, with 5 teeth; the 2 upper some- 
what separated from the 3 lower. Corolla with the standard 
scarcely spreading, as long as or longer than the wings and 
keel; keel obtuse, without an apiculus. Stamens diadelphous. 
Style ascending. Stigma obtuse or sub-capitate. Pod varying 
in shape, tumid, more or less completely divided into 2 cells by a 
longitudinal partition proceeding from the lower or dorsal suture. 
Seeds few or numerous. 
Herbs or undershrubs of various habit, but with the leaves 
pinnate, with numerous pairs of pinne and generally an odd ter- 
minal leaflet, more rarely with the petiole excurrent and leafless 
but never terminating in a tendril. Flowers in terminal and axil- 
lary racemes spikes or heads, more rarely solitary or in pairs, purple, 
blue, white, ochreous, or yellow. 
The name of this genus of plants is derived from the Greek word acrpayanoc, the 
vertebra, applied by Dioscorides to some leguminiferous plant, the knotted rootstock of 
which resembled a backbone. Some writers say the derivation is from agrnp (aster), 
a star, and yada (gala), milk. 
SPECIES I—ASTRAGALUS ALPINUS. Zinn. 
Puate CCCLXXYV. 
Phaca astragalina, D.C. Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ. et Helv. ed. ii. p. 200. Gr. & Godr. 
Fl. de Fr. Vol. I. p. 452. 
Rootstock slender, creeping, much branched. Stems short, 
slender, decumbent. Leaves with 7 to 10 pairs of ovate-elliptical 
VOL. III. L 
