环荚黄耆 huan jia huang qi

Plant hairs thin, often bent, white, in inflorescence also black, 1-2 mm. Stems mostly several, prostrate to ascending, 2-50 cm, spreading hairy. Leaves 5-15 cm; stipules greenish, 5-10 mm, hairy; petiole 1-2 cm, with rachis slender, often flex­uous, hairy like stem; leaflets in 6-11 pairs, elliptic to obovate, 4-15 × 2-8 mm, adaxially sparsely to loosely and abaxially to densely covered with appressed to spreading hairs, apex deeply incised. Racemes 5-15(-20)-flowered; peduncle 1-4 cm, hairy like stem; bracts green, linear-acute, 2-3 mm, hairy. Flowers subsessile. Calyx 5-6.5 mm, shortly campanulate, densely covered with white or white and black hairs; teeth very unequal, 3 lower ones filiform, 3-5 mm, 2 upper ones only 2-2.5 mm. Petals whitish or yellowish; standard elliptic, 5-7.5 × 2.5-3.5 mm, apex deeply incised; wings 4-5.5 mm; keel 5-6.5 mm. Legumes linear, strongly falcate to screwlike twisted and often forming a complete circle of less than 1 cm in diam., 1-2 cm, 3-3.5 mm high and 2.5-3 mm wide, with a minute beak, com­pletely 2-locular; valves thinly membranous, nearly blackish brown when ripe, rugulose to pitted or warty, loosely to rather densely covered with spreading hairs.

Riversides, saline meadows. Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; SW Asia (Azerbaijan), Europe].