Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Astragalus racemosus var. racemosus
Photo is of parent taxon

cream milkvetch
Leaflets

(11–)17–31, blades 3–12 mm wide.
Flowers

16–19(–21) mm;

corolla whitish, concolorous, or keel tip lilac, wings and banner sometimes lightly suffused with purple or purple-veined.
Legumes

linear-oblong to narrowly oblong-ellipsoid, (15–)20–30 × 3–5.7 mm.
2n

= 24.

Astragalus racemosus var. racemosus
Phenology Flowering May–Jul.
Habitat Seleniferous bluffs, knolls, allu­vial bottoms and roadsides on clay, shale, or gypsum.
Elevation 500–1400 m. (1600–4600 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
CO; KS; MN; MT; ND; NE; NM; OK; SD; TX; WY; SK; Mexico (San Luis Potosí)
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

T. Nuttall (1818) noted the disagreeable garlic odor associated with selenium in his description of Astragalus galegoides Nuttall (an illegitimate name pertaining to A. racemosus). The species often grows intermixed with A. bisulcatus; both are poisonous to livestock, producing so-called alkali disease or the blind-staggers. Variety racemosus does not occur west of the Continental Divide.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Bisulcati > Astragalus racemosus
Sibling taxa
A. racemosus var. treleasei
Synonyms A. racemosus var. longisetus
Name authority unknown
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers