Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus solitarius |
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Pursh's milkvetch, woollypod milkvetch |
lonesome milkvetch, weak milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, acaulescent to shortly caulescent, densely villous to villous-tomentose, hairs basifixed. | Plants perennial, caulescent, cinereous-strigillose, hairs basifixed. |
Stems | prostrate, loosely to densely tufted, 0–20 cm. |
solitary or few; erect; (15)20–50 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. |
2–7 cm; leaflets 5–9(13), linear to linear-oblong; (1.5)3–15 × 0.5–3 mm; tips obtuse or subacute; surfaces abaxially strigose, adaxially strigose or glabrescent; stipules 1–3 mm; free. |
Inflorescences | racemes or subumbels, 1–12-flowered; peduncles 1–14 cm; bracts 4–9 mm; pedicels 2–4.3 mm; bracteoles 0–2. |
racemes, loosely or remotely (3)7–30-flowered; peduncles (3)5–15 cm; bracts 0.6–1.5 mm; pedicels 1–2 mm; bracteoles 0. |
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 at anthesis; calyces 2.3–3.4 mm, strigose; hairs white or partly fuscous or black; tubes 2.1–2.8 mm; teeth deltoid or subulate, 0.3–0.8 mm; corollas (5.5)6–8 mm; yellowish green, purple-tinged; ovules (6)8–15. |
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. |
unilocular, pendulous, narrowly oblong or lance-oblong; straight or falcately decurved, strongly compressed, bicarinate, 12–25 × 3–5.5 mm, strigillose; valves papery to thinly cartilaginous; stipes 4–8 mm. |
Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus solitarius |
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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. |
Slopes, flats, sagebrush. Flowering May–Jul. 900–1600 m. BR, Owy. NV. Native. |
Source | Flora of Oregon, volume 2, page 671 Richard Halse |
Flora of Oregon, volume 2, page 674 Richard Halse |
Sibling taxa | ||
Subordinate taxa | ||
Synonyms | Astragalus purshii var. ophiogenes | |
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