TERMS USED ■ - ASTRAGALUS. 



The flowers consist of bannei '.vhicti is the upper petal; wings 

 (the two side petals), and keel wliicli is the inner petal and is com- 

 posed of two petals united along the lower edge. The banner Is almost 

 always grooved up the middle which is called the groove or sulcus. 

 The middle of the banner usually has a white spot which is variously 

 shaped and veined. The claws of the petals are those parts inclosec) 

 in the calyx and differ from the expanded parts called the blades. Whei 

 not otherwise stated the claw is not included in measurements of tht 

 length of the petals but is included in the length of the flowers. The 

 wings are always narrow and for the most part are concave or convex 

 to the keel and rarely united to its base, the tips mostly are longer than 

 the keel and one or both either flaring or hooked over the end, some 

 times one flares and the other is bent over the keel, sometimes they 

 are twisted from a vertical to a horizontal position at the end of keel 

 and then resemble wings, they are mostly entire, but sometimes notch- 

 ed below the middle or rarely cleft or lobed in the forms approaching 

 Oxytropis. The keel tip is mostly triangular and inclined to boat- 

 shaped or lunate (moon-shaped), sometimes produced sharply on the 

 upper end, but not in the middle of the end which is a character of 

 Oxytropis. The calyx varies from tapering at base to trancate or 

 very oblique and even with a knob on the upper corner, sometime? 

 fleshy-thickened at tip of pedicel, the uppe-side is often deeper cleft 

 than the lower. The pods are formed of two valves united by their 

 rdges called sutures, the upper edge is the ventral (the one that 

 bears the seed) and is sometimes inverted by the twisting of the 

 pedicel, the lower is the dorsal and is mostly a mere line. The lowest 

 developed forms like A. campestris have the simple vetch-like pods 

 with both sutures mere ribs or lines, others have the ventral suture 

 variously thickened and often raised like a keel, it is seldom depressed 

 except in some Inflati where it is both depressed and even produced 

 somewhat as a partition from which the seeds hang. When the 

 pod is grooved at all it is mostly plcng the dorsal suture which is 

 variously impressed forming a fold, in some forms this fold extends to 

 the ventral suture simply as a fold, at other times its sides are 

 united to form a partition which rarely is completely united to the 

 ventral suture and making the pod wholly 2-celled, very rarely does 

 it lose its identity as a union of the two sides of the fold; when the pod 

 is grooved it is called sulcate. It is called inflated when the cavity is 

 larger than the mature seeds. When the pod has a stalk on which it 

 is raised partly or wholly out of the calyx this is called the stipe. The 

 cross-section of the pod as to shape is supposed to rest on the dorsal 

 as its base. The seeds of the Astragali differ but little and are reni- 

 form and attached along the ventral suture, generally attached alon& 

 file middle of the pod and not from base to tip. 



