Astragalus Nevinii

Title

Astragalus Nevinii

Author(s)

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Astragalus nevinii A.Gray

Description

134. Astragalus Nevinii

Perennial but apparently flowering the first season, at length forming bushy plants up to 3—4 dm. tall, softly villosulous throughout with fine, contorted and some straighter or simply incumbent hairs up to 0.6-0.9 mm. long, the stems canes- cently tomentulose, the herbage greenish-canescent, the leaflets equally pubescent on both sides; stems of the year 8-30 cm. long, bushy-branched, becoming indurated at base, apparently diffuse and ascending, erect only in young plants; stipules 2-5 mm. long, the lowest becoming papery, deltoid-triangular, the longer upper ones semiamplexicaul, with lanceolate or lance-acuminate blades, pubescent dorsally (sometimes with black hairs) but less densely so than the stem; leaves 2-8 cm. long (or on some lateral spurs shorter), petioled but the uppermost shortly so, with 11-25 oblong-obovate, -elliptic, or -oblanceolate, very obtuse or retuse, flat leaflets (1.5) 3-12 mm. long; peduncles slender, ascending, perhaps humistrate in age, 6-12 cm. long, equaling or commonly surpassing the leaf; racemes shortly and rather densely (15) 20-30-flowered, the flowers declined in age, the axis a little elongating, 2—4 cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, pallid, linear-lanceolate, 1.5-3 mm. long, decurved in fruit; pedicels at anthesis 0.5-1 mm. long, in fruit arched outward, thickened, 0.6-2 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2; calyx 5.7-6.4 mm. long, villosulous like the herbage with white or mixed white and fuscous hairs, the scarcely oblique disc 0.6-0.9 mm. deep, the deeply campanulate tube 3.8-4.5 mm. long, 2.5—3 mm. in diameter, the broadly subulate or lanceolate teeth 1.4-2.4 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals "pale- yellow," immaculate; banner broadly rhombic or broadly ovate-cuneate, shallowly notched, 10.6—12.7 mm. long, 6.6—8.7 mm. wide; wings 10.2—11.3 mm. long, the claws 4.9—5.3 mm., the narrowly oblong or narrowly oblong-oblanceolate, truncate or obliquely emarginate, nearly straight blades 6.3—7.3 mm. long, 1.6—2.2 mm. wide; keel 9—10 mm. long, the claws 5—5.5 mm., the half-obovate blades 4.3—5 mm. long, 2.2—2.5 mm. wide, incurved through 85-95° to the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.5—0.6 mm. long; pod pendulous, stipitate, the slender stipe 4.5—9.5 mm. long, the obliquely narrow-ellipsoid body 1.4—2 cm. long, 3—5 mm. in diameter, cuneate at base, contracted at apex into a stout, obconic, cusplike beak ± 1.5 mm. long, lunately incurved, triquetrously compressed, carinate ventrally by the salient suture, openly but deeply grooved dorsally, the lateral faces nearly flat, the green, thinly fleshy, glabrous valves becoming brownish-stramineous, stiffly papery, prominently reticulate, inflexed as a nearly complete septum 1—1.3 mm. wide, ovules 16—20; seeds unknown.—Collections:—6 (o); representative. Trask 279 (NY); Murbarger 124 (UC); Raven 17,624 (CAS).

Sandy flats and dunes, or sandy bluffs, on and near the shore, known only from San Clemente Island off the southern California Coast, according to Raven (in Aliso 5: 325) common on the north, west, and south sides of the islands, often associated with A. miguelensis but less abundant. Map No. 109. February to July, perhaps intermittently through the year.

Astragalus Nevinii (Joseph Cook Nevin, 1835-1913 China missionary resident in Los Angeles from 1877) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 21: 412. 1[886.— Island of San Clemente Southern California, Messrs. Nevin and Lyon, April, 1885. "Holotypus. GH. isotypi, POM (fragm.)!—Tium Nevinii (Gray) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24. 390. 1929.