Flora of North America species comparison

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Astragalus subcinereus var. sileranus

Astragalus sect. Scytocarpi
Photo is of parent taxon

Siler's milkvetch
Habit Herbs perennial, caulescent; caudex subterranean.
Stems

prostrate, 14–60 cm, often conspicuously flexuous.

single or few to many.
Leaves

odd-pinnate, subsessile to petiolate;

leaflets (3–)7–25(–31), sometimes decurrent.
Racemes

loosely flowered, flowers ascending, spreading, or declined.
Flowers

5–9 mm.

Corollas

purple to pink or pink-purple, purplish, ochroleucous, yellowish, or whitish, banner recurved through 45–90°, keel apex obtuse or acute-triangular.
Calyx

tubes shallowly to deeply campanulate or subcylindric.
Legumes

ellipsoid, turgid, not bladdery-inflated, length usually more than 2 times width, 5–8 mm wide (if shorter, less than 7 mm wide and texture leathery).

persistent, sessile or subsessile to stipitate, spreading to declined, deflexed, or pendulous, oblong, ellipsoid, subglobose, or cylindroid, sometimes bladdery-inflated, 3-sided, subterete, or compression lateral or dorsiventral, unilocular.
Seeds

4–36.
Hairs

basifixed.
Stipules

connate at proximal nodes, distinct ± distally.

Astragalus subcinereus var. sileranus

Astragalus sect. Scytocarpi
Phenology Flowering May–Aug.
Habitat Ponderosa pine, aspen, oak, pinyon-juniper, and mixed mountain brush communi­ties.
Elevation 1700–2800 m. (5600–9200 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
NV; UT
w North America; Mexico; c North America
Discussion

Variety sileranus occurs in Lincoln County in Nevada, and Garfield, Iron, Kane, and eastern Washington counties in Utah.

The main overlap in distribution between vars. subcinereus and sileranus occurs in Lincoln County, Nevada, but still, this variety is most closely allied to the disjunct var. basalticus of central Utah.

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

Species 14 (13 in the flora).

In the flora area, sect. Scytocarpi consists of 13 species in six subsections found on the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Colorado Basin, southward through Arizona, New Mexico, trans-Pecos Texas, and northeastern Mexico; one other subsection is found only in northeastern Mexico.

The subsections are: subsect. Scytocarpi (A. Gray) Barneby (Astragalus flexuosus, A. fucatus, A. pictiformis, A. proximus, and A. subcinereus); subsect. Wingatani Barneby (A. cliffordii and A. wingatanus); subsect. Microlobi (A. Gray) Barneby (A. gracilis); subsect. Microcymbi S. L. Welsh (A. microcymbus); subsect. Halliani (Rydberg) Barneby (A. castetteri, A. hallii, and A. puniceus); subsect. Shevockiani Barneby (A. shevockii); and subsect. Antonini Barneby (A. coriaceus Hemsley), which is confined to Mexico.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Scytocarpi > Astragalus subcinereus Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus
Sibling taxa
A. subcinereus var. basalticus, A. subcinereus var. subcinereus
Subordinate taxa
Synonyms A. sileranus, Phaca sileriana
Name authority (M. E. Jones) S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 58: 49. (1998) A. Gray: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 6: 222. (1864)
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).



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