WHO 

 DEERVETCHES 



Lo'tus spp. 



The deervetches (Lotus spp.), members of the pea family, are 

 in the main perennial or annual herbs, although some are semi- 

 shrubby with stems which do not die down entirely each year. 

 Varying in size from small, semiprostrate to upright plants 4 

 feet in height, they are distributed throughout the West from the 

 low-lying deserts to the spruce-fir belts of the higher mountains 

 but are largely natives of California, where 29 species occur. As 

 regards habit, western deervetches subdivide broadly into two 

 groups: (1) Mostly low plants, with small, whitish, somewhat 

 woolly leaves, examples being birdsf oot deervetch, or "Spanish clover" 

 (L. americanm) , Douglas deervetch (L. douglasii], and foothill 

 deervetch (L. humistratus) ; (2) darker green, upright, and mostly 

 tall species, usually with rather conspicuous flowers, of which big 

 deervetch (L. crassifolius} and stream deervetch (L. oblongifolius) 

 are typical representatives. Members of the first group are usually 

 found on dry, well-drained soils, while species of the second group 

 generally inhabit more moist situations and as a rule are somewhat 

 higher in palatability. Desert deervetch (L. cwgensis}, a very good 

 forage species common in the semidesert and chaparral browse 

 ranges of Arizona and locally in southeastern California, is repre- 

 sentative of those species whose stems do not die down entirely 

 each year. 



The forage value of different species of Lotus ranges from very 

 low to high. Most of the range species usually occur in scattered 

 stands making up a rather small percentage of the vegetation. 



Lotus is a large and variable genus of world-wide distribution. 

 Some American botanists place all the native species in the genus 

 Hosackia and regard Lotus as a strictly Old World genus. Other 

 botanists prefer to divide these plants into five genera : Acmispon, 

 Anisolotus, Hosackia, Lotus, and Syrmatium,. The Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, customarily 

 places all these diverse deervetches in the one genus Lotus. That 

 usage is followed here. 



The most distinctive characters of this genus are : Leaves entirely 

 without dotted glands, mostly pinnately compound, as in our com- 

 mon sweetpea but without tendrils and with usually three to many 

 (but sometimes only one or two) smooth-edged (entire) leaflets; 

 flowers pealike, from yellow to nearly white, often marked with 

 rose, red, or purple, and usually borne in umbrella-shaped clusters 

 (umbels) but sometimes singly or in heads; stamens 10, in 2 sets 

 (diadelphous), 1 stamen by itself, and 9 united at base. The pod is a 

 narrow, straight or curved, often flattened, one to many-seeded 

 legume. The halves of the pod (valves) at maturity often twist 

 spirally and expel the seeds with considerable force. 



Deervetches are known by a variety of local names including 

 deerclover, deerpea, and deerweed. The "three-leaved" (trifoliolate) 

 species are frequently called trefoil, but historically that is a name 

 which belongs to the clover genus (Tri folium). 



