CLASSIFICATION OP ANGIOSPERMS. 



569 



Cytisus scoparius or green or Scotch broom is a shrub nat- 

 uralized from Europe. The branches are numerous, slender, erect 

 and grow close together, adapting them for use as brooms. The 

 tops are used in medicine. 



Tamarindus indica is a tree attaining a height of 25 M. The 

 leaves are pinnately compound, having numerous sessile, entire, 



FIG. 319. Tragacanth plant (Astragalus gummifer): A, flowering branch; B, 

 modified, thorn-like leaf with stipules at the base; C, irregular (bilateral) flower; D, legume 

 of A. aristatus, After Taubert. 



oblong leaflets -, the flowers are in terminal racemes and the petals 

 are yellow with reddish veins ; the fruit is a curved, indehiscent 

 legume which has a thin epicarp and a pulpy sarcocarp with 

 numerous fibers, and contains a number of flat, . quadrangular 

 seeds. The pulp is the part used in medicine as a laxative and 

 refrigerant. 



Astragalus gummifer is a tomentose shrub less than i M. 

 high. The leaves are pinnately compound, the leaflets being narrow 



