48 CHLORIS BOREALI-AMERICANA. 



glabrous with age. The stipules are variable ; those of the branch- 

 es smaller in proportion, often linear, and much shorter than the 

 petioles they subtend ; the cauliue ones fall by the time the fruit 

 is matured. The raceme, of bright yellow flowers, is four to six 

 inches long, rather crowded, with the pedicels (which are scarcely 

 longer than the calyx) alternate, or occasionally some of them rather 

 verticillate-aggregated, or two to three from the same foliaceous 

 bract. The flowers are three fourths of an inch long. The teeth 

 of the campanulate calyx are nearly as long as the tube, triangular, 

 and acute. The stamens are nearly as deciduous as in T. fraxini- 



folia ; and the ovaries, as well as the legumes, are much as in that 



I' 

 species. 



This species, though still little known to American botanists, ap- 

 pears to be generally distributed throughout the middle and upper 

 parts of North Carolina, doubtless extending northward and south- 

 ward into the adjacent States ; but, so far as known, it does not 

 •reach to the mountains. The most eastern locality is at Hillsbor- 

 ough, from which live plants were communicated to the Cambridge 

 Botanic Garden by my esteemed friend, the Rev. M. A. Curtis. 

 When Mr. Curtis cleared up the confusion that prevailed respecting 

 this species and T. fraxinifolia, he still retained it in Baptisia, and 

 described the legume, from imperfect and apparently abnormal 

 specimens, as " oblong and turgid." But afterwards, on observing 

 the perfect pods, he at once recognized it as a congener of his T. 

 fraxinifolia and T. Caroliniana. 



Tab. IX. Thermopsis mollis ; whole plant. Fig. 1. Calyx and stamens. 

 Fig. 2. Ovary, the calyx cut away. FHg. 3. A legume. All the figures of 

 the size of nature. 



