ASTRAGALUS. 
189 
lines long, 1-3 broad. FI. rather small pale or greenish v. ; 
rac. shortly oblong dense, mostly from 10-15- not often less 
than 5- or 6-fld., on erect axillary ped. 2-4 or 5 in. long pro- 
duced throughout the whole length of the st. Bracts small 
lanceolate membranous deciduous. Cal. and rachis clothed 
with brown and black hairs. Cal. -teeth linear-lanceolate shorter 
than the tube. Pods about 1 in. long, ± in. broad, strongly 
hooked or sickle-shaped, 3-sided but distinctly compressed, 
with a deep broad furrow, having prominent raised margins, 
on their convex side or back, clothed in all stages with short 
closs-pressed bristly hairs, pale gr. or yellowish, but when fully 
ripe pale brown and splitting open along their concave side. 
Seeds compressed dark olive-y. ; radicle prominent. 
Varies greatly in habit and luxuriance, being sometimes quite 
prostrate, with st. not above 2 or 3 in. long, and sometimes a 
foot high or more and bushy, with upright or diffusely speading 
branches. It differs from the true A. hamosus L. ! (Herb. Linn. !) 
in the smaller (shorter and narrower) compressed trigonal (not 
terete or cylindrie) widely channeled and in all stages (adult 
as well as young) adpressedly strigose-pubescent pods, in the 
smaller more crowded lfts., the hoary villose foliage, and free 
distinct not oppositifolious stipules. Nor are the lfts. cuneate 
or obovate, or the ped. shorter than the 1. On the other hand 
the Canarian pi. A. hamosus a and /3 WB. ! ii. 93, 94, formerly 
confoimded with the present by myself and Webb, proves by 
examples gathered recently abundantly in Lanzarote, Fuerte- 
ventura, Hierro, and Gomera by myself, to be the true A. hamosus 
L. Herb. Linn. ! 
f2. A. BJETICUS L. 
Herbaceous ann. inconspicuously pubescent ; st. procumbent 
or diffuse; stip. free distinct; lfts. in 10-15 pairs oblong or 
linear-oblong truncate or retuse smooth above; ped. few-flowered 
short, much shorter than the 1. ; pods erect straight oblong 
short and thick three-sided subcompressed broadly channeled 
on one side, beaked with a hooked point at the tip ; dorsal 
suture and edges of channel tumid thickened. — Desf. ii. 184 ; 
Brot. ii. 1G7 ; BC. ii. 291; WB. ii. 94; FI. Gr. t. 730.— Herb, 
ann. Mad. reg. 1, rrr. Brazen Head, only on the steep sunny 
western slopes of the extreme point in a strong clay soil, where 
it is perfectly naturalized, though doubtless originally a mere 
straggler, or the remains of cultivation on the spot. It has not 
been met with either wild or cult, elsewhere in Mad., though 
probably, from its luxuriance in this exposed and arid situation, 
it might prove in similar places an exceedingly valuable re- 
