Astragalus sect. Argophylli |
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Habit | Herbs perennial (sometimes flowering as annual), usually tuft- or mat-forming, acaulescent, subacaulescent, or caulescent; caudex usually superficial or aerial, sometimes subterranean. |
Stems | (when present) obsolete, single, few, or several to many. |
Leaves | odd-pinnate, usually petiolate, rarely short-petiolate or subsessile; leaflets (1 or)3–39(–43). |
Racemes | subcapitate to loosely flowered, flowers erect, ascending, spreading, declined, or nodding, secund, and retrorsely imbricate. |
Corollas | purple, pink-purple, magenta-purple, violet, bluish, lilac, scarlet, ochroleucous, greenish white, or white, banner barely recurved (A. phoenix) or recurved through 20–50° (90–100° in A. accumbens), keel apex obtuse. |
Calyx | tubes cylindric or deeply campanulate. |
Legumes | usually deciduous, usually sessile, rarely subsessile or substipitate, gynophore sometimes present, usually ascending (humistrate), less often spreading or pendulous, subglobose to ellipsoid, narrowly lanceoloid, ovoid or oblong-ellipsoid, or lanceoloid-ovoid, straight or usually incurved, usually compressed dorsiventrally, sometimes obcompressed, 3-sided, turgid, or inflated, unilocular, subunilocular, or bilocular. |
Seeds | 11–70. |
Hairs | basifixed or malpighian. |
Stipules | distinct (except anomalous forms of A. missouriensis, A. tephrodes, and A. zionis). |
Astragalus sect. Argophylli |
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Distribution | w North America; n Mexico |
Discussion | Species 44 (44 in the flora). Section Argophylli comprises ten subsections, widespread in western North America from southern British Columbia and Saskatchewan southward to northern Baja California, northern Sonora, and western Texas. The subsections are: subsect. Argophylli (A. Gray) M. E. Jones (Astragalus argophyllus, A. callithrix, A. columbianus, A. cyaneus, A. desereticus, A. eurylobus, A. henrimontanensis, A. iodopetalus, A. piutensis, A. shortianus, A. tephrodes, A. tidestromii, A. uncialis, A. zionis); subsect. Pseudargophylli Barneby (A. feensis, A. waterfallii); subsect. Neomexicani Barneby (A. neomexicanus); subsect. Newberryani M. E. Jones (A. eurekensis, A. loanus, A. musiniensis, A. newberryi, A. phoenix, A. welshii); subsect. Concordi S. L. Welsh (A. concordius); subsect. Coccinei M. E. Jones (A. coccineus); subsect. Eriocarpi (A. Gray) Barneby (A. anserinus, A. funereus, A. inflexus, A. leucolobus, A. nudisiliquus, A. purshii, A. subvestitus, A. utahensis); subsect. Parryani Barneby (A. parryi); subsect. Missourienses M. E. Jones (A. accumbens, A. amphioxys, A. castaneiformis, A. chamaeleuce, A. consobrinus, A. cymboides, A. laccoliticus, A. missouriensis, A. piscator); and subsect. Anisi Barneby (A. anisus). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | |
Subordinate taxa | |
Name authority | A. Gray: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 6: 209. (1864) |
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