tall, erect, densely much branched, pubescent or glabrous; branches and twigs angular; leaves imparipinnate, in 3–5 pair, leaflets linear or lanceolate-linear, acute, very narrow; stipules small, free, lanceolate or ovato-lanceolate; pedicels axillary, long or short, bracteolate beyond the middle, the bracteoles connate; calyx very variable in incision and pubescence (see vars.) Arborescent or shrubby, 6–12 feet high, densely branched and leafy; very variable in pubescence, sometimes densely hairy, sometimes quite glabrous, different specimens showing various intermediate states. Leaflets commonly 10–15 lines long, 1/2 line wide; but in var. ε. 1–2 lines wide, and evidently lanceolate. A garden specimen, in Herb. Hooker, shows very instructively the little value, in this species, of the form of leaflets; part of the same branch producing filiform, almost setaceous leaflets, and part linear-lanceolate leaflets, flat, midribbed and 1 line wide; thus altogether uniting var. α. and ε. The length of pedicels is also most variable; sometimes the flowers are subsessile, sometimes on stalks 1–2 inches long. Nor are the calycine characters more constant, as seen in the above mentioned varieties. Other minor varieties might be noticed; thus, different specimens of var. δ. glabra, have obtuse, subacute and very acute calyx-lobes, passing from broadly-ovate to almost lanceolate! The most singular calyx occurs in var. β., but by no other character does it differ from α., and in general aspect the two are identical.
