74 



AN TJNDESCBIBED 



ORIENTAL SPECIES OF ONOBRYCHIS 



BY 



David PRAIN 



Planche III. 



Among the spécimens preserved in the Calcutta Herbarium the writer 

 fînds représentée! a species of Onobrychis collected by D r Bellew in 

 Afghanistan in 1858 that does not agrée with any named species in the 

 collection and does not fit into any of the species described by M. Bois- 

 sier in the Flora Orientalis. It has never again been reported by the col- 

 lectors either of the Calcutta or the Saharanpur Botanic Gardens nor 

 does it seem to hâve been met with by D r Aitchison during his Afghan 

 journeys. Mr. Hemsley, however, who has kindly compared the Calcutta 

 spécimen with the material preserved in the Herbarium at Kew, informs 

 the writer that there are at Kew fragments of the same plant in fruit ; 

 thèse latter were obtained by D r Wilson Johnston in the Logar valley 

 during the cold weather of 1879-80. 



The pod in this species clearly indicales that ils most natural position 

 is among the Heliobrychideœ of the section Sisyrosema (Boiss. Flor. 

 Orient., II, 527); like the species Onobrychis nitida, referred with justice 

 by M. Boissier to the Hymenobrychideœ, this new species violâtes the 

 sectional characters of Sisyrosema in having perfectly glabrous petals. 

 Except as regards the glabrous standard, however, it appears to be most 

 naturally placed near 0. melanotricha and 0. oxyptera though it is qui te 

 peculiar among ail the species known to the writer in having the fertile 

 suture of the pod convex like the dorsal one, ail other species having the 

 fertile suture straight, concave or even circinnately bent. 



The species, it will be seen, possesses considerably more interest 

 than isolated new species usually do. The description that folîows, which 



