82 MISC. PUBLICATION 101, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
Range ratany (X. glandulosa), locally known as heart-nut, is a 
low, densely, and diffusely branched shrub (fig. 20), 8 to 24 inches 
high, with numerous small leaves, rather handsome, purplish flowers, 
and rounded spiny peds. The species ranges from western Texas 
to southern Utah, southern California, and south into Mexico. It 
is largely a foothill plant, with an altitudinal distribution of 2,000 
to 4,500 feet, occurring typically on dry rocky mesas accompanied 
by various lower range gramas, three-awns, eriogonums, gilias, lo- 
tuses, and lupines. Although common and abundant it occurs usually 
as scattered individuals. Some years it has two flowering periods, in 
the spring (April and May) and in late summer or early fall (August 
and September), the seed ripening within about a month or six weeks 
after flowering. 
Range ratany is a valuable and well-relished forage plant for 
all classes of livestock, and is often closely eaten down on 
cattle ranges. The branches are somewhat brittle and trail along 
the ground more or less, so that intensive grazing is liable to be very 
injurious to the species. On the other hand, the delicately spiny and 
burlike fruits are well adapted to dissemination by animals, which 
also probably help to plant the seeds by trampling and rolling, and 
there is little question that grazing assists in spreading and maintain- 
ing the species. 
Trailing ratany (X. secundiflora), also called sand bur and Texas 
ratany, which occurs from Kansas to New Mexico and south into 
Mexico, is conspicuous among the semiherbaceous species listed as 
herbaceous but having thick woody roots and woody stem bases and 
really being undershrubs. Its slender, trailing, almost vinelike stems 
and delicate leaves would theoretically appear to be palatable to 
livestock. It has been reported as but slightly eaten on the Wichita 
National Forest, Oklahoma, during the spring when abundant, palat- 
able herbaceous forage was available. 
Littleleaf ratany (X. parvifolia), which ranges in the mesquite- 
catclaw type and other dry sites, from Lower California to southern 
California, southern Arizona, and Sonora, is one of the most palat- 
able cattle browses in the lower foothills of southern Arizona. Rus- 
sell (704) states that the powdered root is medicinal with the Pima 
Indians, and that they use it to dye leather red. 
White ratany (X. grayi, syn. K. canescens A. Gray (1852), not 
K. canescens Willd. (1825)) is browsed, sometimes almost to the 
point of extinction, by all classes of livestock in spring and early 
summer on Arizona foothill ranges, according to Thornber (132). 
BEAN FAMILY (FABACEAE, SYNS. LEGUMINOSAE, PAPILIONA- 
CEAE), OFTEN CALLED LEGUME OR PEA FAMILY 
' INDIGOBUSHES (AMORPHA SPP.) 
About 15 species of this genus, all native to the United States and 
Mexico, have been described, of which at least half occur in the West- 
ern States. The glandular-punctate leaves of indigobushes, often 
called false-indigos, indicate active chemical properties, and their 
membership in the tribe Psoraleae, which contains a number of 
poisonous and suspected plants, makes it desirable to watch live- 
stock very closely when these plants occur in quantity on the range. 
