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Douglas kentrophyta, Douglas' spiny milkvetch, spiny millk-vetch, thistle milk-vetch

Habit Plants prostrate, densely mat-forming, becoming suffruticose. Herbs perennial, caulescent; caudex superficial.
Stems

and herbage strigulose, hairs basifixed.

several to many.

Leaves

1–1.7 cm;

stipules dimorphic, 2–5 mm;

leaflets 5(or 7), blades 5–12 mm, surfaces pubescent.

odd-pinnate, sessile or subsessile to petiolate;

leaflets (3–)5–21, jointed or decurrent.

Racemes

sometimes paired, loosely or remotely flowered, flowers ascending, spreading, or declined.

Peduncles

subobsolete.

Flowers

5.8 mm;

calyx 4.7–5.2 mm, tube 2.2–2.4 mm, lobes subulate, spinulose, 2.3–3 mm;

corolla whitish.

Corollas

pink-purple, whitish, or ochroleucous, banner recurved through 40–90°, keel apex obtuse.

Calyx

tubes usually campanulate, sometimes turbinate-campanulate.

Legumes

lanceoloid, 5–5.5 × 2 mm.

eventually deciduous or persistent, sessile or stipitate, deflexed, declined, or pendulous, linear, oblong, ellipsoid, lenticular, or ovoid- or obovoid-subglobose, compressed laterally or bladdery-inflated, unilocular.

Seeds

2.

2–9(–11).

Hairs

usually basifixed, rarely malpighian (in some varieties of A. kentrophyta).

Stipules

connate or distinct at distal nodes.

2n

= 24.

Astragalus kentrophyta var. douglasii

Astragalus sect. Ervoidei

Phenology Flowering Jun.
Habitat Sandy substrates.
Elevation 150–400 m. (500–1300 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
OR; WA
[BONAP county map]
w North America
Discussion

Variety douglasii is known from only a few, vague historical records, probably taken near the present city of Walla Walla near the Great Bend of the Columbia River, and appears to be extinct.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Species 5 (5 in the flora).

Section Ervoidei consists of three subsections, widely distributed from Yukon southward to California, New Mexico, Hudson Bay, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

The subsections are: subsect. Ervoidei (Torrey & A. Gray) Barneby (Astragalus bourgovii, A. multiflorus, A. vexilliflexus); subsect. Microcystei (A. Gray) Barneby (A. microcystis); and subsect. Submonospermi (A. Gray) Barneby (A. kentrophyta).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Ervoidei > Astragalus kentrophyta Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus
Sibling taxa
A. kentrophyta var. coloradoensis, A. kentrophyta var. danaus, A. kentrophyta var. elatus, A. kentrophyta var. jessiae, A. kentrophyta var. kentrophyta, A. kentrophyta var. neomexicanus, A. kentrophyta var. tegetarius, A. kentrophyta var. ungulatus
Subordinate taxa
Synonyms Homalobus
Name authority Barneby: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 13: 364. (1964) (Torrey & A. Gray) Barneby: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 13: 344. (1964)
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