喜沙黄耆 xi sha huang qi

Plants 3-6 cm tall, forming prostrate, rather dense mats, white hairy. Stems 0.5-4(-6) cm, very densely tomentose with symmetrically to extremely asymmetrically bifurcate to sub­basifixed, partly curly or flexuous, tangled, ascending to spreading hairs up to 1 mm. Leaves 1.5-3(-4) cm; stipules 3-4 mm, adnate to petiole for ca. 1 mm, nearly fully connate into a sheath surrounding stem and base of petiole, triangular bidentate at apex, densely ± appressed hairy; petiole 1-2 cm, like rachis rather densely covered with subappressed to partly ascending hairs up to 0.5 mm; leaflets in 2-4 pairs, close together, subflabellate, narrowly obovate to obovate, 4-6 × 1.5-2 mm, densely appressed hairy, rounded at apex. Racemes sessile or with a hairy peduncle 2-3 mm, 1- or 2-flowered; bracts 2-2.5 mm, densely hairy. Flowers subsessile. Calyx tubular, 8-15 mm, densely subappressed hairy; teeth 1-2 mm. Petals pink, rarely white; standard ca. 1 × 6-7 mm, slightly constricted be­low middle, apex emarginate; wings 14-20 mm, limbs rounded to slightly obliquely emarginate, auricle very short; keel 11-18 mm. Legumes sessile, 4-5 mm, 2.5-3 mm high and 4-5 mm wide, densely white tomentose.

Sandy soil. Gansu, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia (Si­beria), Uzbekistan].