180 
25. LEGUMENOSiE. 
as ov. round slender smooth, giving off from its upper side a 
little below the thickened tip a short distinct straight slender 
branch or tooth. Pods mostly 2 in. long, -jL in. thick, perfectly 
straight and cylindric, tipped with a short curved point, quite 
smooth, shining dark brown or black, erect or spreading not 
detlexed or drooping, divided within into as many cells as seeds 
by numerous regular transverse membranous dissepiments ; very 
rarely here and there strangulate or torulose. Seeds very small, 
one millim. in diam., 30—40 in a full-sized 2-incli pod, orbicular 
compressed, perfectly smooth and even, appearing to the naked 
eye dark brown, but through the lens tawny or dark yellowish 
mottled with black specks and dots. 
Usually more erect or bushy and always less grey or hoary 
than P. glauca (Ait.), with a wholly different habit, owing to its 
delicate minute thin foliage, and shorter stiffer branches not in- 
terlacing into tangled matted beds or tufts. 
5. P. ARGENTEA Lowe. 
Suffrutescent silvery-white or grey and softly silky-villose or 
hirsute ; st. elongated woody stout and stiff prostrate or pro- 
cumbent ; stip. shortly stalked roundish-oval ; 1. very distinctly 
stalked, lfts. large obcordate or obovate-ivedgeshaped retuse mu- 
cronulate ; fl. solitary very rarely binate on short stalks with a 
large leafy 3-foliate hr. or subsessile ; pods distinctly stalked 
lung straight evenly cylindric more or less hairy many-seeded ; 
seeds 12-50 a little larger than in P. macrantha. — Hook. J. Bot. 
viii. 203. — — r subper. PS. reg. 4, rrr ; ND. r ; SD. reg. 2, 
PS., rocky summit of Pico do Facho, N. side. NI). at the top, 
under the low central ridge or bank of rocks running northwards 
immediately beyond the ruined house. SB. at or near the top 
on the W. side or edge of the cliff. April-July. — Very different 
in aspect and habit from P. macrantha, altogether coarser and 
stouter with large silky densely hairy silvery foliage, and com- 
paratively stout stiff woody branches, though the pi. is of scarcely 
more than annual duration. Branches long straggling pro- 
cumbent or diffuse distinct not crowded and thus rarely cespitose 
or bushy; silvery and silky-hairy. Petioles rather long (2-3 
lines) distinct ; lfts. sometimes 4 in. long and -t in. broad at 
top, bluntly rounded, more or less retuse often mucronate, 
thickly clothed and almost shaggy with white adpressed silky 
hairs. Stip. the same but shorter and cordate-oval or rhomboid. 
Fl. rarely more than half the size of those of P. macrantha, and 
mostly altogether dark dull mulberry-juice- or claret-purple, 
rarely pale greenish-lemon. Teeth of the cal. (in the fl.) |, 
longer than the tube linear-acuminate or subulate nearly equal 
in length broader in fr. Stylo long, persistent, with a very 
