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Photo is of parent taxon

boreal locoweed, Nuttall's oxytrope, oxytrope visqueux, sticky boreal crazyweed, sticky boreal locoweed, sticky crazyweed, sticky oxytrope, sticky oxytropis, viscid locoweed

Habit Plants usually 8–26+ cm, glandular.
Leaves

2–21 cm;

leaflets (19–)25–39+.

Racemes

3–19+-flowered, subcapitate to elongate.

Peduncles

4–27 cm, often some surpassing leaves, axis often (1.5–)4–19 cm in fruit, pubescent.

Corollas

pink-purple, lilac, whitish, or yellowish, keel tips maculate or not, 11–16 mm;

wing blades not especially dilated distally.

Calyces

7–10.5 mm, tube 4–7 mm, lobes (1–)1.5–3.5(–4.5) mm, prominently tuberculate.

Legumes

(8–)12–21(–30) × (4–)5–7 mm.

Oxytropis borealis var. viscida

Phenology Flowering spring–summer.
Habitat Gravel bars, roadsides, ridge crests, talus slopes, pinyon-juniper slopes, sage­brush, boreal forest, tundra communities.
Elevation 0–3900 m. (0–12800 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; CA; CO; ID; MN; MT; NV; OR; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; NT; NU; ON; QC; YT
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Variety viscida is quite variable, with numerous subunits held together by tenuous characteristics that are difficult to define or place in a key. Variation is often great in populations from adjacent hillsides or on a single gravel bar, especially in the Arctic. Dwarf plants far removed from the range of var. hudsonica are similar to that entity; the inflorescences become capitate, and the calyx lobes are often relatively very short. Further study might reveal the need for additional segregation. The Pan-Arctic Flora (http://panarcticflora.org/) recognizes O. glutinosa and O. viscida as distinct species.

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

Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Oxytropis > Oxytropis borealis
Sibling taxa
O. borealis var. australis, O. borealis var. borealis, O. borealis var. hudsonica, O. borealis var. sulphurea
Synonyms O. viscida, Aragallus viscidus, Astragalus viscidus, O. campestris var. viscida, O. gaspensis, O. glutinosa, O. ixodes, O. leucantha var. depressa, O. leucantha var. gaspensis, O. leucantha var. ixodes, O. leucantha var. magnifica, O. leucantha var. viscida, O. sheldonensis, O. viscidula, Spiesia viscida
Name authority (Nuttall) S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 50: 358. (1991)
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