Astragalus miser var. serotinus

  • Title

    Astragalus miser var. serotinus

  • Author(s)

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus miser var. serotinus (A.Gray ex Cooper) Barneby

  • Description

    49c. Astragalus miser var. serotinus

    Relatively tall and slender, the stems (1) 1.5-3.5 dm. long; herbage strigulose with appressed or subappressed hairs up to (0.3) 0.35-0.6 (0.7) mm. long, usually thinly so, green or rarely greenish-cinereous, the leaflets glabrous above; leaves 4-15 (17.5) cm. long, with slender petioles and (9) 11-19 (21) usually distant, often scattered, narrowly elliptic to linear or linear-oblanceolate, acute or obtuse, flat or (especially in some upper, rarely all leaves) involute leaflets (2) 4-30 (40) mm. long, the terminal one remote from and longer than the uppermost pair, commonly continuous with the rachis but sometimes obscurely jointed; racemes loosely (3) 6-16 (24)-flowered, the axis (1.5) 2.5-14 cm. long in fruit; calyx 3-4.2 (4.5) mm. long, the tube 2.3-3.1 (3.5) mm., the teeth 0.7-1.3 mm. long; petals whitish, the banner often veined or suffused and the keel tipped with pinkish-lilac, or rosy-lilac throughout; banner 7—9.5 (10.5) mm. long, 4.4—6.7 (7) mm. wide; wings 6-8.8 (9.5) mm. long, the claws 2.4-3.6 mm., the blades 4.1-6 (7) mm. long, 1.5-2.6 mm. wide; keel 6-7.8 (8.4) mm. long, the claws 2.6-3.6 mm., the blades 3.8-5 (5.5) mm. long, 1.8-2.2 (2.5) mm. wide, the tip narrowly triangular but scarcely beaklike; pod sessile or subsessile, the stipe not over 0.6 mm. long, the body linear-oblong, straight, subsymmetrically triangular at apex, 1.3-1.8 (2.1) cm. long, 2-2.8 (3.2) mm. in diameter, the valves either glabrous or minutely strigulose with hairs up to 0.2-0.35 mm. long; ovules 7—10 (12).—Collections: 65 (o); representative: J. W. & E. M. Thompson 30, 86 (CAS, NY, RSA, WS, WTU); J. M. Macoun 63,752 (CAS, NY, WS); Hitchcock & Martin 7805 (NY, WS, WTU); C. L. Hitchcock 17,393 (ID, NY, RSA, WS); J. W. Thompson 7023 (CAS, WS), 10,910 (CAS, NY, WS, WTU); Sandberg & Leiberg 473 (CAS, NY, WS).

    Brushy banks, grassy flats, open hillsides, and glades in pine forest, 700-4600 (5000) feet, frequent and locally abundant in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta from Jasper Park southward just into Montana (Kootenai Mountains and south fork of Lolo River), west and south, equally or perhaps more abundantly across the mountains of southern British Columbia and south along the east slope of the Cascade Range to the Wenatchee Mountains in interior Washington.—Map No. 20.—May to August.

    Astragalus miser var. serotinus (Gray) Barneby in Amer. Midi. Nat. 55: 481. 1956, based on A. serotinus (late-flowering, true of the typus only) Gray ex Cooper in Pac. R. R. Rep. 12: 51, Pl. V. 1859.—"Near the Columbia river, about latitude 48°. Rare, probably a second growth in burnt ground; October."—Holotypus, labeled "Stevens Expedition, Kooskoo- skie, J. G. Cooper," GH! isotypus, labeled "Okanogan River, Washington Territory, lat. 48°, October, 1854, Cooper," NY!—A Cooper spm. at US, labeled "Upper Columbia" = A. miser var. miser!—Tragacantha serotina (Gray) O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 948. 1891. Astragalus decumbens var. serotinus (Gray) Jones, Contrib. West. Bot. 10: 58. 1902. Phaca serotina (Gray) Piper in Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 11 (Fl. Wash.): 374. 1906. Astragalus campestris var. serotinus (Gray) Jones, Rev. Astrag. 75. 1923.

    Astragalus Palliseri (John Palliser, b. 1817, Canadian explorer, surveyed the International Boundary from Lake Superior to the Pacific) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 6: 227. 1864.— Rocky Mountains on the British Boundary, probably not at great elevations, Bourgeau, in Palliser’s expedition... ’’—Holotypus, Phaca No. 3 in 1858, GH! isotypi, K ("Montagnes rocheuses a la base, 13 août, 1858"), NY!—Homalobus Palliseri (Gray) Rydb. in Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 1 (Fl. Mont.): 248. 1900.

    Cooper s weedy milk-vetch, var. serotinus, partakes of some features of var. hylophilus and others of var. miser, and the three varieties are linked by intermediate forms where their ranges meet or overlap. It differs ideally from var. hylophilus in its taller stems, similarly green blit narrower leaflets, smaller flowers, and ordinarily shorter calyx-teeth. The typical phase of A. miser is similar in stature and narrowness of the leaflets, but is distinguished by its gray or silvery foliage pubescent on both sides with longer hairs, by its larger flowers, and by the densely strigulose legume. In the Cascade Mountains of Washington and southern British Columbia, the flowers of var. serotinus are like those of var. hylophilus, pallid except for the purple keel-tip; but from the Fraser River valley eastward to the Rocky Mountains, the petals are commonly purplish and plants of this sort, especially when relatively ample-flowered, pass imperceptiby into var. miser. In a critical area along and near the boundary between Glacier Park and Kettle Falls on the upper Columbia, such intermediate forms are especially common, but the three varieties mentioned have, nevertheless, immense independent ranges. The variety was collected first in 1830, by David Douglas (BM, sine loc.).