PULSE FAMILY. Leguminosx. 



' PULSE FAMILY. Leguminosce. 



A very large family of food-producing plants, with 

 butterfly like flowers, and alternate, usually compound 

 leaves, generally without teeth. The flowers are perfect 

 and are borne singly or in spikes ; they are fertilized 

 largely by bees and butterflies. 



A smooth and slender plant with deep 

 gray-green, triple leaves of wedge-shaped 

 Hnctoria leaflets covered with a slight bloom ; they 



Yellow are almost stemless. The small pealike 



June-August blossoms are pure yellow, and terminate 

 the many branches of the upright stem. The flowers 

 are visited by the butterflies and the Syrphid flies, but 

 the honeybee, the leaf-cutter bee Megachile, and the 

 bees of the genus Halictus are probably the most effi- 

 cient agents of cross- f ertilization . The plant grows 

 with a bushy luxuriance in favorable situations, and has 

 a most remarkable habit of turning black upon wither- 

 ing. 18-28 inches high. In dry sandy soil everywhere. 

 Not in central N. H., but common at Nantucket. Found 

 at Pownal, Vt. 



A beautiful, tall, western species, with 

 Blue False , 



Indigo P green smooth stem, light green 



Baptisia wedge-shaped, short-stalked triple leaves, 



australis and loose flower-clusters, sometimes 10 



Light violet i nc hes long, of light, dull violet blossoms 

 June-July q u it e i j nc h long, of a soft, aesthetic hue. 

 The peapodlike fruit is tipped with a spur. Plant 3-6 

 feet high. On rich alluvial soil, western Pa., south to 

 Ga., and west to Mo. Quite handsome in cultivation. 



The rattlebox, so named because the 

 Ootatorfa seeds rattle about in the boxlike, inflated, 

 sagittalis sepia-black pods, has oval pointed leaves, 



Yellow toothless, and nearly stemless, growing 



June-August alternately along the bending stem. The 

 yellow flowers are scarcely \ inch long. The stems and 

 edges of the leaves are soft-hairy. 4r-12 inches high. 

 In dry sandy soil everywhere, but not very common. 



