Astragalus Whitneyi var. lenophyllus

  • Title

    Astragalus Whitneyi var. lenophyllus

  • Author(s)

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus whitneyi var. lenophyllus (Rydb.) Barneby

  • Description

    87b. Astragalus Whitneyi var. lenophyllus

    Low, diffuse, the stems 4—15 (20) cm. long; herbage densely hirsutulous with rather stiff, ascending or spreading, straight or nearly straight hairs up to 0.5—0.7 mm. long, the leaflets equally pubescent on both sides, gray or silvery; leaves (1.5) 2-4 cm. long, the 9-17 leaflets 3-13 mm. long; racemes very shortly 5-9-flowered, the axis 0.5-2 cm. long in fruit; calyx hirsutulous with white or mixed black and white hairs; petals as in var. Whitneyi, the color not certainly known (ochroleucous when dry); pod glabrous, the stipe 3-5 (7) mm., the body 1.5-3.5 (4.2) cm. long, 1-2 (when pressed up to 2.5) cm. in diameter.—Collections: 13 (o); representative: Lemmon 67, 68 (NY); Heller 7101 (NY); J. T. Howell 18,620, 18,672 (CAS, RSA).

    Treeless summits and open stony places in the timber belt, 8800-10,000 feet, known only from near the crest of the Sierra Nevada in Placer and Nevada Counties, California. — Map No. 32. — July and August.

    Astragalus Whitneyi var. lenophyllus (Rydb.) Barneby in El Aliso 2: 205. 1950, based on Phaca lenophylla (woolly-leaved) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 341. 1929.—"Type collected on Tinker’s Knobs, Placer County, California, altitude 9000 feet, July 24, 1892, Sonne ... "—Holotypus, collected in part on July 24, in part in August, 1892, NY!—A. lenophyllus (Rydb.) Tidest. in Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 50: 21. 1937.

    The var. lenophyllus, poorly differentiated from var. Whitneyi, is nevertheless easily recognized by the congestion along the leaf-rachis of the small, often folded leaflets which are clothed with a dense, comparatively loose and long coat of silvery-gray hairs. Flowers and fruits of the two varieties are essentially identical, but those of var. lenophyllus are less variable in size. The variety is dispersed in the Sierra over nearly the same range as A. (Chaetodontes) Austinae, although where the latter extends east of Lake Tahoe onto the slopes of Mt. Rose, it is associated with var. Whitneyi. The var. lenophyllus was first collected somewhere in the Sierra in 1870 by Dr. Kellogg (CAS, DS).