LBGUMINOSH-FAFTLIONA < 77. 7-:. 



213 



Hi /fi/sarum 

 corouarium. 





imbricate in the bud. The petals form a papilionaceous corolla; 

 the obovate or obcordate standard, re Hexed on anthesis, tapers at 

 the base, though seldom forming a distinct claw. The wings 

 shorter than the standard, and sometimes very short, are obliquely 

 elongated, each supported on a short narrow claw, 

 above which the base of the limb is produced into an 

 auricle. The petals of the keel have also short claws, 

 and are usually longer than the wings ; the keel, 

 obtuse at the apex, is curved or abruptly bent, and as 

 it were obliquely truncate along its inferior edge. The 

 androceum consists of ten diadelphous stamens, the 

 filaments of the nine anterior being united below, form- 

 ing a cleft tube open behind ; the anthers are introrse, 

 all uniform. The sessile or shortly stipitate ovary 

 contains a variable number of descending campy loptro- 

 pous ovules, whose micropyles look upwards and 

 outwards, is surmounted by a slender hollow style, 

 abruptly inflexed, and ends in a little undilated stigma. 

 The fruit (fig. 181) is a piano-compressed elongated 

 pod, containing several seeds, and lomentaceous — i.e., 

 dividing transversely at maturity into as many indehiscent joints 

 as there are seeds. Each joint represents a sort of achene. It 

 is smooth or muricated, and contains a reniform exarillate exal- 

 buminous seed, with an inflexed radicle. Hedysarum consists of 

 perennial herbs, undershrubs, or more rarely shrubs. Some fifty 

 species 1 are known from the temperate regions of Europe, North 

 Africa, Asia, and North America. The leaves are imparipinnate, 

 with scarious stipules, but no stipels. The flowers form axillary 

 racemes, and are themselves axillary each to a scarious or setaceous 

 bract, and accompanied by two lateral bractlets placed some way 

 up the pedicel, usually close against the flower. 



Next to Hedysarum come on the one hand Taverniera, S/racI/eya, 

 JEversmannia, Alhayi, and Coretlirodendron, which have the same flower 

 and several-jointed seed, but differ in the form of the fruit and in habit; 



Fig. 181. 

 Fruit (I). 



1 Jacq., Fl. Austr., t. 1G8. — Ledeb., Icon., 

 Fl. Ross., t. 51, 52, 482.— Desf., Fl. Atlant., 

 t. 200.— Sibth., Fl. Grcec, t. 721.— Tore. & 

 Ok., Fl. N. Amer., i. 35 ( J. — Keichb., Iconog. 

 PI. CriL, t. 411.— Moris, Fl. Sard,, t. 68.— 

 Boiss., Voy. Bot., t. 50. — B&E. & Mi; v., Enum. 



Fl. Sais. Nor., t. 8. — Fenzl., in TcMhatch. As- 

 Min. Bot., t.4, 5.— Gren. & Godk., Fl. </c l'r.. 

 i. 503-509.— Bot. Beg., t. 808.— i>V. Mag., t- 

 282, 1251, 2213.— Walp., Rep., i. 711; ii. 892 ; 

 v. 527; A,m., ii. 115 ; iv. 511. 



