Physaria montana |
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mountain bladderpod |
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Habit | Perennials; caudex simple or branched, (often enlarged); densely pubescent, trichomes (sessile or short-stalked), 4–7-rayed, rays furcate or bifurcate, (tuberculate throughout). |
Stems | simple or several from base, prostrate to erect, 0.5–2(–3.5) dm. |
Basal leaves | blade suborbicular or obovate to elliptic, (1–)2–5(–7) cm, margins entire, sinuate, or shallowly dentate. |
Cauline leaves | (often secund, proximal shortly petiolate, distal sessile); blade linear to obovate or rhombic, 1–2.5(–4) cm, margins entire or shallowly dentate. |
Racemes | dense, compact, (usually elongated in fruit). |
Flowers | sepals elliptic, 5–8.5 mm, (lateral pair boat-shaped, saccate, median pair thickened apically, cucullate); petals (yellow to orange, sometimes fading purplish), narrowly spatulate or obovate, (6–)7.5–12 mm, (claw undifferentiated from blade, or gradually narrowed to claw, slightly expanded basally). |
Fruiting pedicels | (usually sharply sigmoid, rarely nearly divaricate-spreading and straight), 5–15(–20) mm, (stout). |
Fruits | (erect), ellipsoid or ovoid, not or slightly obcompressed, (apex not compressed), (6–)7–12 mm; valves densely pubescent, sometimes sparsely pubescent inside; ovules (8–)12–20(–24) per ovary; style 3–7 mm, (sometimes pubescent). |
Seeds | flattened. |
2n | = 10. |
Physaria montana |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun(-Aug). |
Habitat | Banks, rock outcrops, stony slopes and benchlands, from plains into mountains, in sagebrush, open scrub oak, pinyon-juniper woodland, ponderosa pine, Douglas fir on granitic, often gravelly, non-calcareous soils, rarely on calcareous soils |
Elevation | 1000-3300 m (3300-10800 ft) |
Distribution |
AZ; CO; NE; NM; SD; WY
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Discussion | Physaria montana is a rather variable species that in southwestern Colorado morphologically approaches P. rectipes and in eastern Wyoming approaches P. curvipes; it is unusual in the genus for its frequent presence on igneous, non-calcareous soils. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 7, p. 650. |
Parent taxa | Brassicaceae > tribe Physarieae > Physaria |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | Vesicaria montana, Alyssum grayanum, Lesquerella montana, Lesquerella montana var. suffruticosa, Lesquerella rosulata |
Name authority | (A. Gray) Greene: Fl. Francisc., 249. (1891) |
Web links |