\, > 250 ■■ ' 



LONCHOCARPI. 26. 



This group is nearest related to the Bisulcati be- 

 cause of the obcompressed pod inclined to be bisulcate, 

 1-celled, stipitate, and opening only along the ventral su- 

 ture, but in other features it approaches the Homalobi. 

 Stems flexuous, 1-2 ft. high, rather rush-like and, like 

 the leaves and peduncles, round, striate, green and rather 

 fleshy and drying very slowly, slender. Stipules small, 

 rigid, deltoid. Leaves short-petioled, of few distant leaf- 

 lets or none. Leaflets nearly filiform, round in cross sec- 

 tion or channeled, 1-3 cm. long, blunt, terminal leaflet a 

 mere prolongation of rachis and not jointed to it. Pe- 

 duncles stout, erect, with the rachis 1-2 dm. long, race- 

 mosely few-flowered above the middle. Bracts minute, 

 rather broad, shorter than the rather stout pedicels. 

 Calyx cylindrical, truncate at both ends (triangular at 

 base in lonchocarpus), attached near the middle, the 

 teeth shorter than tube whi':'h is 3-6 mm. long and 2 mm. 

 wide. Flowers about 1-1.5 cm. long, the blades half as long 

 and sharply arched and rather wide, pearl-white to 

 light-purple. Pods pendent on recurved pedicels which 

 are not twisted, slightly sulcate to much obcompressed 

 ventrally, with thick and conspicuous ventral suture 

 somewhat raised, acute at both ends and stipitate or con- 

 tracted at base and seemingly stipitate, opening along the 

 ventral suture and inclined to be explanate, the cavity 

 inflated somewhat, smooth to ashy, 2-6 cm. long, nar- 

 rowly oblong to linear-oblanceolate, nearly straight, 

 ventral suture mostly the more arched, about 5 mm. wide. 



KEY. 



A. Pods with stipe if any shorter than calyx. 



Flowers 1-2 cm. lonj;, wliite. 



Fods conical-acute at both ends. 211 Kaihensis. 



Pods with long and flat beak. 212 Osterhouti. 



Flowers 7 mm. long, not white. 21;, Diuhesnensis. 



2A. Pods long-stipitate, greatly obcompressed so that the cross 

 section is nearly linear to oblately deltoid or quadrate, mostly 

 very broadly and shallow-sulcate on each side of the thick ven- 

 tral suture, pendulous, opening only along the ventral suture 

 and explanate with age, coriaceous, often a trifle wider above, 

 about 5 cm. long. 



Whole plant green and rush-like. 214 lonchocarpu.;, 



211. Astragalus Kaibensis Jonps Cont. 10 64 (1902). Almost 

 exactly similar to A. Episcopus except that the leaves are rarely 

 over 5 cm. long-, the pedicels sometimes only twice the bracts, and 

 in the flowers and pods. Pods about 2 cm, lonp:, oblong, conical- 

 acute at both ends, 5-6 mm. in diameter and cross section about 



