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

Oxytropis borealis var. sulphurea

Oxytropis borealis
Photo is of parent taxon

Beringian locoweed, boreal locoweed

boreal crazyweed, boreal locoweed, Nuttall's oxytrope, sticky crazyweed
Habit Plants usually 8–30 cm. Plants cespitose, appearing acaulescent, 4–30 cm, glandular-viscid, especially stipules and calyces, herbage spreading-hairy.
Leaves

4–25 cm;

leaflets 19–35, blades 4–18 mm.

1–25 cm;

stipules membranous, light tan or grayish, 8–21 mm, often with debris adhering, usually prominently glandular, pilose or glabrous abaxially, margins ciliate;

leaflets 17–39+, blades oblong to lanceolate or elliptic, 1.5–22 × 1–6 mm, apex acute or obtuse, surfaces pilose or glabrous, often glandular.
Racemes

8–25-flowered, compact to loose.

3–19+-flowered, dense or nearly capitate.
Peduncles

4–20+ cm, axis often (2–)3–15 cm in fruit, pilose.

1–27 cm, axis 0.5–19 cm in fruit, hirsute, pilose, or villous-pilose, hairs spreading;

bract lanceolate to lanceolate-linear, shorter than or surpassing calyx, glandular or glabrous, margins ciliate.
Corollas

white or bluish, keel tips maculate, 9–21 mm;

wing blades not especially dilated distally.

whitish, yellowish, ochroleucous, lilac, purple, bluish, or pink-purple, keel tip maculate or not, (9–)11–18(–21) mm.
Calyces

6–9 mm, tube 5–7 mm, lobes 2–4 mm, prominently tuberculate.

cylindric to shortly so, villous, hairs black and white;

tube 4–7 mm, lobes 1–5(–8) mm, usually glandular.
Legumes

8–15 × 5–7 mm.

mostly erect, sessile, ovoid to subcylindric, 8–21(–30) × 4–7 mm, bilocular or incompletely so, glandular, strigose to pilose.

Oxytropis borealis var. sulphurea

Oxytropis borealis
Phenology Flowering summer.
Habitat Roadsides, gravel bars, ridge crests in boreal forests, shrublands, meadows.
Elevation 900–1300 m. (3000–4300 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; BC; YT
[BONAP county map]
from USDA
North America; Asia
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

There are many transitional forms between vars. sulphurea and viscida in the broad sense. The materials included here are plottable in the herbarium and notable in the field. Many of the plants are small-flowered (ca. 12 mm) and, consequently, have narrow racemes. Large-flowered phases are present and, in some, the bracts are very long, surpassing the flowers at anthesis.

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

Varieties 5 (5 in the flora).

Considerable confusion has existed over typification of Oxytropis borealis (S. L. Welsh 1990). The relationships of this species with several Eurasian taxa in sect. Gloeocephala Bunge are not well understood (R. C. Barneby 1952b).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Racemes subcapitate or nearly so, 5–10-flowered; wing petal blades dilated distally to 3.5–5 mm; leaflets (17 or)19–27(–37).
var. borealis
1. Racemes elongate, or subcapitate and elongating in fruit; wing petal blades not especially dilated distally, 2–3 mm, or if wider, then inflorescence not subcapitate; leaflets 17–39+.
→ 2
2. Peduncles 2.5–7 cm; calyx lobes 1–1.5 mm, not or obscurely tuberculate.
var. hudsonica
2. Peduncles (1–)4–27 cm; calyx lobes 1–4(–4.5) mm, prominently tuberculate.
→ 3
3. Corollas white or bluish, keel tips maculate; inflorescence axis often (2–)3–15 cm in fruit; se continental Alaska, n British Columbia, s Yukon.
var. sulphurea
3. Corollas white, ochroleucous, pink-purple, lilac, or yellowish, keel tips maculate or not; inflorescence axis often (1.5–)4–19 cm in fruit; Alaska to n, nc United States.
→ 4
4. Corollas pink-purple, lilac, whitish, or yellow; leaflet blades not thick or stiff; plants glandular.
var. viscida
4. Corollas usually white or ochroleucous, rarely fading bluish; leaflet blades thick and stiff; plants markedly viscid.
var. australis
Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Oxytropis > Oxytropis borealis Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Oxytropis
Sibling taxa
O. borealis var. australis, O. borealis var. borealis, O. borealis var. hudsonica, O. borealis var. viscida
O. arctica, O. besseyi, O. campestris, O. deflexa, O. huddelsonii, O. kobukensis, O. kokrinensis, O. lagopus, O. lambertii, O. maydelliana, O. mertensiana, O. multiceps, O. nana, O. nigrescens, O. oreophila, O. parryi, O. podocarpa, O. riparia, O. scammaniana, O. sericea, O. splendens
Subordinate taxa
O. borealis var. australis, O. borealis var. borealis, O. borealis var. hudsonica, O. borealis var. sulphurea, O. borealis var. viscida
Synonyms O. viscidula subsp. sulphurea
Name authority (A. E. Porsild) S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 50: 358. (1991) de Candolle in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle: Prodr. 2: 275. (1825)
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, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

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