OXYTROPIS LAMBERTI 

 COLORADO LOCO-VETCH. 



NATURAL ORDER, LEGUMINOS^. 



OxYTROPIS Lamberti, Pursh. — Silky with fine appressed hairs ; lenflets mostly linear ; flowers 

 larger (than Oxytropis campestris), purple, violet or sometimes white; pods cartilaginous 

 or firm coriaceous in texture, strictly erect, cylindraceous-lanceolate and long-pointed, 

 almost two-celled Ijy intrusion of the ventral suture. (Gray's Manual of the Botany of the 

 Northern United States.) 



HEN the reader notes that the botanical description of 

 this beautiful wild flower is taken from Dr. Gray's Maii- 

 tial of the Botany of the NortJieru United States, which is confined 

 to the " plants east of the Mississippi," he may be told that it is 

 not properly at home in this region, but has merely disregarded 

 geographical lines, and ran over a little into Dr. Gray's territory 

 by way of western Minnesota. It is stricdy a Rocky Mountain 

 plant, extending from British America into Texas, leaving the 

 higher elevations occasionally to adorn the plains below. It is 

 wholly confined to this region, and has not even made its way to 

 California as so many of the Colorado plants have done. The 

 flowers of this dry region of our country have little odor, but 

 they are famed for their brilliant colors, by which they give a 

 gay and attractive feature to the otherwise dreary scenery of this 

 Inland tract. Among this brilliant assemblage our present spe- 

 cies occupies no mean place. It forms tufts in the crevices of the 

 rocks, or generally where the w^ashings from higher places have 

 made little patches of level land ; and when it finds Itself in these 

 more favorable situations, it will sometimes throw up stems fifteen, 

 or even eighteen, Inches high. It is often much shorter than the 



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