Astragalus Nuttallii var. virgatus

Variable in habit of growth, usually coarse, erect or assurgent, the stems (4) 6-10 dm. long, sometimes relatively slender and prostrate or mounded along the immediate coast; hairs of the herbage loosely ascending, straight or sinuous, up to 0.5-0.95 mm. long; leaflets commonly glabrous, exceptionally puberulent, above, often only thinly ciliate on the margins and midrib beneath; leaves (4) 5.5-17 cm. long; racemes (25) 40-90 (125)-flowered, the axis (4.5) 6-19 cm. long in fruit; calyx (5.5) 6-8 (9) mm. long, its tube (4.4) 4.7-5.5 (5.9) mm., the teeth (1.1) 1.3-2.5 (3.1) mm. long; banner (10) 11—15 mm. long; wings (9.7) 10.5-16.5 mm. long; keel (9.7) 10.5-14 mm. long; pod (2) 2.5-4 cm. long, 1.5-2.5 cm. in diameter.—Collections: 25 (i); representative: Eastwood 1575 (CAS, NY); Kellogg & Harford 191 (CAS, NY); A. Heller 8385 (CAS, NY); Eastwood & Howell 6063 (CAS); /. T. Howell 21,868, 23,159 (CAS).

Ocean bluffs, sandy fields, brushy or grassy banks, sometimes in temporarily moist, sandy bottom land, mostly below 500 feet in the coastal fog belt, formerly plentiful within and near the city of San Francisco in northern San Mateo and San Francisco Counties, but the few surviving stations threatened by urban developments, formerly on the east shore of the Bay near Alameda (Greene in 1890, not seen since); southeast side of Angel Island, just within Golden Gate, Marin County; also exclusively maritime, on Point Reyes Peninsula (McClure Beach), Marin County, and near Mendocino, Mendocino County.—Map No. 110.—April to July, and occasional through the year.

Astragalus Nuttallii var. virgatus (Gray) Barneby in Aliso 4: 135. 1958, based on A. Crotalariae var. virgatus (wandlike, of the racemes) Gray ap. Brew. & Wats., Bot. Calif. 1: 149. lS76.—". ..about San Francisco, Bridges, Kellogg or Holder."—Holotypus, Bridges 76, GH! isotypi, NY (2 sheets); paratypi (Kellogg & Holder) GH, (Kellogg in 1866), G, P, NY!

A. franciscanus var. longulus (longish, of the racemes) Sheld. in Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 135. 1898, an illegitimate substitute. A. franciscanus var. virgatus (Gray) Ckll. in Bot. Gaz. 26: 437. 1898. Phaca virgata (Gray) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 347. 1929.

Astragalus franciscanus (of San Francisco) Sheld. in Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 135. 1S94, based on A. Crotalariae sensu Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 6: 216. 1864 (non A. Crotalariae Bth.).—"Near San Francisco? Dr. Gibbons, received from the late Dr. Darlington, with both flowers and ripe fruit. Cocomungo, Dr. Bigelow ... Valley of San Inez River, near Santa Barbara, Dr. Brewer..."—Lectotypus, Gibbons in 1853. GH! the paratypi (Bigelow, Brewer, GH!) represent A. pomonensis Jones.—Phaca franciscana (Sheld.) A. Hell., Muhlenbergia 2: 217. 1906. A. vestitus var. franciscanus (Sheld.) Jones, Rev. Astrag. 110. 1923.

The var. virgatus is here circumscribed to include all of several variants of the Nuttall milk-vetch known to occur on San Francisco Peninsula and on the coast from San Mateo County northward. The assemblage is somewhat inconveniently heterogeneous, since it includes a prostrate maritime phase, with exceptionally small flowers (the banner 10-11.5 mm., keel 6.7-10.5 mm. long) and stipules nearly all permanently connate, and the exceedingly robust form from more sheltered sites away from the ocean, in which all the stipular sheaths, except those on some slender branches, become early ruptured and appear only semiamplexicaul- decurrent at full anthesis. The latter is quite variable in density of pubescence, but when well developed the hairs are of the same type as in the ordinarily gray-villous var. Nuttallii. The minor variant with puberulent pod, var. virgatus sens, strict., has been collected only about the north end of the peninsula, near Point Lobos, in the Presidio compound, and on Angel Island. I have seen one collection from the Presidio (Nora Pettibone in 1894, CAS) in which glabrous and puberulent pods are associated under a common label. It is impossible to separate two entities on the basis of this single character.

It is apparent from the context that when Gray proposed his var. virgatus, he had in mind as typical A. Crotalariae the species we now know as A. pomonensis. It was in this sense that he employed the name A. Crotalariae (always with reservations as to the identity of Phaca Crotalariae Bth.) in his Revision (1864, p. 216) except for the reference to the Gibbons plant collected doubtfully near San Francisco. It is assumed that when Sheldon based his A. franciscanus on A. Crotalariae sensu Gray, 1864, he inadvertently typified the new species by means of its epithet. It is convenient to conserve the Gibbons plant as lectotypus of A. franciscanus, for if applied to the Bigelow and Brewer collections from southern California, it would have to replace, most inappropriately, the later A. pomonensis Jones.