Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus canadensis |
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Pursh's milkvetch, woollypod milkvetch |
Canadian milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, acaulescent to shortly caulescent, densely villous to villous-tomentose, hairs basifixed. | Plants perennial, caulescent, strigose, hairs malpighian. |
Stems | prostrate, loosely to densely tufted, 0–20 cm. |
1–few; erect, rarely decumbent to ascending, 15–120 cm. |
Leaves | 1–12(17) cm; leaflets (3)5–17(21), elliptic to oblanceolate, 2–14(20) × 1–7 mm; tips obtuse to acute; surfaces densely villous; stipules 2.5–15 mm; free. |
3–35 cm; leaflets (7)13–35, lanceolate; lance-oblong or elliptic, 10–52 × 6–16 mm; tips obtuse to emarginate; surfaces abaxially strigose, adaxially strigose or glabrous; stipules 3–14 mm; at least lowermost connate-sheathing. |
Inflorescences | racemes or subumbels, 1–12-flowered; peduncles 1–14 cm; bracts 4–9 mm; pedicels 2–4.3 mm; bracteoles 0–2. |
racemes, densely many-flowered; peduncles 4–22 cm; bracts 1.5–10 mm; pedicels 0.5–3.5 mm; bracteoles 0–2. |
Flowers | ascending at anthesis; calyces 5.5–16(19) mm, often purple, villous-pilose with white or mixed white and black hairs; tubes 8.5–12.5 mm; teeth subulate, 2.2–6 mm; corollas 19–27 mm; whitish to ochroleucous or pink-purple; ovules 14–40(46). |
spreading-declined at anthesis; calyces 4.6–10.5 mm, white-, black- or fuscous-strigillose or -pilosulose; tubes 4–8.5 mm; teeth subulate or triangular, 1.2–5 mm; corollas (11.3)13.2–17.5 mm, ochroleucous or greenish white; ovules 16–28. |
Fruits | unilocular, ascending, obliquely ovoid, usually curved, obcompressed, scarcely to deeply sulcate; (7)13–27(30) × 3.5–11 mm, densely white to tawny tomentose or densely villous; hairs nearly always concealing valve surfaces; valves coriaceous, sessile or on gynophores 0–1.6 mm. |
bilocular; erect, cylindroid; terete or grooved dorsally, 10–20 × 2.9–5.2 mm, strigose or glabrous; valves coriaceous or stiffly chartaceous; stipes 0. |
2n | =16. |
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Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus canadensis |
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Distribution | ||
Discussion | Western North America. ~8 varieties; 4 varieties treated in Flora. Throughout western North America, particularly in the Intermountain Region, this is a low, tufted milkvetch with white or gray villous hairs and pods resembling balls of cotton. Barneby (1964) stated, “Attempts to devise a practical key to the varieties of A. purshii are never wholly successful.” Variety ophiogenes, the Snake River milkvetch, a native of Idaho, has been reported from Malheur County, but this is apparently based on misidentifications of A. purshii var. lagopinus. Variety ophiogenes has 3–11-flowered racemes and 9–17 leaflets. |
Canada and United States. 3 varieties; 2 varieties treated in Flora. Canadian milkvetch is perhaps the most widely distributed Astragalus in North America, rivaled only by Astragalus alpinus. |
Source | Flora of Oregon, volume 2, page 671 Richard Halse |
Flora of Oregon, volume 2, page 660 Richard Halse |
Sibling taxa | ||
Subordinate taxa | ||
Synonyms | Astragalus purshii var. ophiogenes | |
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