A bushy-headed shrub, from 8 to 12 feet in height: 
bark of the trunk greyish brown, of the larger branches 
ash-coloured: bud small short and obtuse: young shoots, 
petioles, peduncles and calyxes downy, or nearly tomentose. 
Leaves pinnate with an odd one, 7-9-paired, leaflets oval, 
obtuse, green, naked above, furred underneath, from an 
inch to an inch and half in length, shortly petioled: stipules 
in pairs at the base of both the general and the partial 
petioles, small, subulate. Spikes terminal, 4-6 inches 
long: flowers small, violet-blue; pedicles shorter than 
these. Calyx permanent, shallow, turbinate, scored, cleft 
at the border into 5 short teeth. Corolla (vexillum) oval, 
concave, obtuse, full as large again as the calyx. Stamens 
longer than the corolla; filaments straight, almost entirely. 
detached from each other, fascicled, a little spreading to- 
wards the top; anthers of a rich deep yellow colour, mak- 
ing a fine contrast with the deep blue corolla. Germen 
oval; style subulate. Pod from 2 to 2 lines and a half 
long, slightly curved, besprinkled with small glandular tu- 
bercles, slightly villous, terminated by a small point formed 
by the remnant of the style: seeds 2, reniform. 
We have 4 species upon record, of which only the pre- 
sent was known to Linnzus. Nana (microphylla, Pursh) 
reaches only from 6 inches to a foot in height, and is found, 
according to Mr. Nuttall, on the woodless grassy hills of 
the Missouri, from the River Platte to the Mountains dif- 
fused like heath in Europe over hundreds of acres in suc- 
cession, seeming to be the only upland shrub capable of 
withstanding the peculiarities of that climate. The most 
ornamental species is canescens; found from the banks of the 
Fox River and the Ouiconsin to the Misisippi; round St, 
Louis, in Louisiana, and on the banks of the Missouri, 
probably to the Mountains. 
The technical distinctions principally relied on to mark 
our present species from the rest seem to be, its having only 
one of the calycine teeth pointed, instead of all being so, 
and a two-seeded, instead of a one-seeded, pod. 
