白皮锦鸡儿 bai pi jin ji er

Caragana aurantiaca Koehne var. deserticola Komarov.

Shrubs to 1.5 m tall. Branches yellowish white to yellow; current-year branchlets purplish red. Leaves digitate, 4-folio­late; petiole 5-8 mm and persistent on long branchlets, absent and leaves clustered on short branchlets; leaflet blades narrowly oblanceolate, 4-12 × 1-3 mm, green, pale green, or reddish, both surfaces glabrous or appressed pubescent, apex acute to obtuse. Flowers solitary or 2 in a fascicle. Pedicel 3-15 mm, glabrous, articulate basally or apically from middle. Calyx tube campanulate, 5-6 mm. Corolla yellow; standard broadly obo­vate, 1.3-1.8 cm, claw short; wings with claw ca. 1/3 as long as limb, auricle ca. 2/3 as long as claw; keel with claw slightly shorter than limb, auricle obtuse and ca. 2 mm. Ovary glabrous. Legume cylindric, 3-3.5 cm, glabrous. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jul-Aug.

Dry slopes, desert valleys; 900-2700 m. N Gansu, Nei Mongol, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia].