(Plate CVI)

Slender, freely branching shrubs up to 4 (5) dm tall, with erect to tortuously diffuse and, if procumbent, adventitiously rooting stems, glabrous to the inflorescence or thinly puberulent distally, the old wood grayish-brown or whitish, furrowed, the young twigs sparsely to densely gland-verruculose, the foliage bright green or glaucescent, the thick-textured leaflets punctate beneath, sometimes also above; leaf-spurs 0.2-0.5 mm long; stipules narrowly subulate, stiff, persistent, 0.4-1.3 mm long, often charged at base with a gland; intrapetiolular glands small or obsolete; post-petiolular glands prominent, orange or pallid, conic; leaves shortly petioled, the cauline ones 616 mm long, with (5) 7-11 (13) obovate, obovate-cuneate, or oblanceolate, truncate- emarginate or retuse, usually folded and backwardly curved leaflets 1.5-5.5 mm long, the spur-leaves shorter, sometimes with only (3) 5-7 smaller leaflets; peduncles terminal to the main stems and to small leafy axillary branchlets, (0) 2-10 (16) mm long, often puberulent; spikes shortly oblong to capitate, moderately dense, (1) 2-20 (35)-flowered, the pilosulous axis 1-15 (22), exceptionally up to 50 mm long; bracts persistent or very tardily deciduous, broadly ovate, acute to short-acuminate, clasping the calyx, (2.5) 3-5 mm long, firm, livid-castaneous or purplish-glaucescent, at least the lowest glabrous dorsally, the upper ones sometimes thinly pilosulous at base and tip, ciliolate or not, dorsally glandular or gland-verruculose, commonly silky- pilose internally at least above middle; calyx (3) 3.3-6.3 mm long, the tube (2) 2.2-4 mm long, externally either silky-pilosulous or rarely glabrous, the ribs slender, not very prominent, the intervals pale but firm, usually charged with 1 row of 3-5 small honey-colored glands, the subulate teeth densely pilosulous at least internally, unequal, the dorsal one longest, (1) 1.4-2.5 (2.9) mm long (0.5-2.5 mm shorter than tube), the ventral pair sometimes united behind banner into a shortly 2-dentate lip; petals pale yellow, in age rubescent or orange-brown, glandless or the keel and banner charged with subapical glands, the banner often gland-sprinkled, the epistemonous ones perched below middle of androecium, 1.3-3.1 mm above hypanthium; banner 3.5-6.2 (7) mm long, the claw 1.9-3.2 (3.5) mm, the deltate-ovate, ± hooded blade recessed at base into a shallow cornet, 2.3-4.4 mm long, 2.6-4.4 (4.8) mm wide, recurved through ± 40° from vertical; wings 3.1-6 mm long, the claw 0.8-1.7 mm, the oblong-ovate blade (2.7) 3-4.8 mm long, 1.5-2.6 mm wide; keel (3.7) 5.5-7.8 (8.1) mm long, the claws (1) 1.6-2.8 (3) mm long, the obovate-elliptic blades (3) 4-5.6 mm long, (2.1) 2.5-3.4 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, (5) 5.5-9.4 mm long, the longer filaments free for 1.8-3.5 mm, the anthers 0.6-0.8 mm long; pod (little known) ± 2.6-3 mm long, the style-base latero-terminal, the sutures slender, the valves membranous in lower 1/2-3/4, thence thinly herbaceous, pilosulous, gland-sprinkled; seed not seen.

A perplexingly variable or rather polymorphic species, the disjunct populations differing in size of bract and flower, in relative proportions and vesture of calyx-tube and -teeth, in number of flowers to the raceme, and in hue of foliage. So little is known at present of the real dispersal and ecology of the variants that discrimination between races, and evaluation of their status, cannot be very convincing, but some are so well marked that they require formal recognition. Tentatively and provisionally four varieties are recognized here. Existence of a fifth, still insufficiently known, is mentioned under var. capitata.