[Sidenote: _Anisolòtus strigòsus (Lotus) (Hosackia)_
=Yellow
Spring, summer, autumn
California=]
This is only a few inches high, with slender, slightly downy stems,
branching and spreading, and bright green leaves, with seven or more,
small, narrow leaflets, slightly thickish, with some minute, bristly
hairs. The few flowers are about a quarter of an inch long, mostly
single, bright yellow, tinged with red, fading to orange, and have a
sort of miniature prettiness. This grows in the south.
[Sidenote: =Bird-foot=
_Anisolòtus decúmbens (Lotus) (Hosackia)_
=Yellow
Summer
Northwest=]
An attractive little perennial, forming low clumps, harmonious in
coloring, of pale gray-green, downy foliage, sprinkled with small
clusters of charming little flowers, each less than half an inch long,
various shades of yellow, and arranged in a circle. The pods are hairy
and it grows on sunny, sandy slopes.
[Sidenote: =Deer-weed=
_Anisolòtus glàber (Lotus) (Hosackia)_
=Yellow and orange
All seasons
California=]
Though the flowers are small and the foliage scanty, the shaded effect
of mingled yellow and orange of these plants is rather pretty, as we
see them by the wayside. The many, long, smooth, reed-like stems grow
from two to five feet high, branching from the root, somewhat woody
below, loosely spreading, or sometimes half lying on the ground. The
leaves are almost smooth, very small and far apart, with from three to
six, oblong leaflets, and the flowers, from a quarter to half an inch
long, are clustered in close little bunches along the stem, forming
long wands, tipped with green buds, and shading downward through the
bright yellow of the larger buds to the orange of the open flowers
and the dull red of the faded ones. The pod is incurved, tipped with
the long style. This is common and widely distributed, a perennial,
but said to live only two or three years. In the south it often makes
symmetrical little bushes, pleasing in appearance. It is a valuable
bee-plant. _A. Wrìghtii_ of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado, is
quite leafy, with erect stems and branches, bushy and woody at base,
the small leaflets from three to five in number. The flowers, without
pedicles, are much like the last, but over half an inch long, yellow
becoming reddish, with a blunt keel, and scattered all over the plant.
[Illustration: Bird-foot--A. decumbens.
Deer-weed--Anisolotus glaber.