Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus sterilis |
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Pursh's milkvetch, woollypod milkvetch |
barren milkvetch, sterile milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, acaulescent to shortly caulescent, densely villous to villous-tomentose, hairs basifixed. | Plants perennial, caulescent, strigillose, hairs basifixed. |
Stems | prostrate, loosely to densely tufted, 0–20 cm. |
single–few, ascending to erect, 6–16 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. |
2–9 cm; leaflets 6–12, linear-elliptic, obscurely jointed; terminal one represented by a dilation of rachis, 1–7 × 0.5–1.5 mm; tips obtuse; surfaces strigillose; stipules 1.5–5 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 loosely 1–5-flowered; peduncles (1)2–7 cm; bracts 0.7–1.3 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). |
declined at anthesis; calyces 3.5–4 mm, thinly strigillose with white and a few black hairs; tubes 3–3.6 mm; teeth triangular, 0.4–0.6 mm; corollas 9–10 mm, ochroleucous, fading yellowish; ovules 17–20. |
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; bladdery-inflated, obovoid, 20–25 × 9–11 mm, purple-mottled, glabrous; valves membranous; stipes 2–4 mm. |
Astragalus purshii |
Astragalus sterilis |
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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. |
Barren clay or ash soils, talus slopes, gravel bars. Flowering May–Jun. 700–2000 m. Owy. ID. 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 | Astragalus cusickii var. sterilis |
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