202 PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



branching from a short, strong tap root. The leaves are trifoliate with 

 ovate to lanceolate leaflets to nearly orbicular '(Fig. 87). All soy plants 

 are hairy with two colors of pubescence, white, or gray and tawny. The 

 flowers are purple and white borne in short axillary racemes with eight to 

 sixteen flowers in each cluster. The pods are compressed, borne in clusters 



PIG. 87. Soy bean (Glycine hispida) with hairy fruit. (After Abel, Mary H.: Beans, 

 Peas and other Legumes as Food. Farmers' Bulletin 121, 1900, p. 19.) 



of three to five, and are gray or tawny. Gray pods bear white, or grayish, 

 hairs and tawny pods have tawny pubescence. Two or three seeds occur 

 in each pod, which are readily discharged. The seeds are uniform in color, 

 which run through a gamut, as follows: straw-yellow, olive-yellow, olive- 

 green, brown and black. The hilum is pale in some varieties and dark 

 in others. 



