Astragalus Pulsiferae var. Pulsiferae

Root-crown commonly but not consistently subterranean, the stems mostly buried for a space of (0) 2-7 cm., commonly branched at emergence from the soil; calyx-teeth (1) 2-3.6 mm. long.—Collections: 16 (iii); representative: Eastwood 14,865 (CAS); Munz 11,817 (CAS, POM); Mrs. Ames (from Indian Valley) in 1875 (ND); Lemmon 70 in 1875 (NY); Ripley & Barneby 5799 (CAS, NY, RSA); Tillotson 199 (NA).

Sandy flats and valley dunes in sagebrush valleys, or gentle slopes in stony or sandy soils of the lower transmontane foothills of the northern Sierra Nevada, mostly on basalt, 4300-5500 feet, not common but locally plentiful, eastern Plumas and adjacent Sierra and Lassen Counties, California, and closely adjoining Washoe County, Nevada.—Map No. 135.—May to August.

Astragalus Pulsiferae (Mary E. Pulsifer Ames, 1845-1902, long resident and botanically active in Plumas County) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 10: 69. 1874 ("Pulsiferi").—"Sierra and Plumas Counties, California, Mrs. Pulsifer-Ames and Mr. J. G. Lemmon."—Lectotypus, collected in Plumas County, August, 1874, by Mrs. Pulsifer Ames, GH! paratypus (Lemmon 515) from Long Valley, Sierra County, GH! Lemmon collections dated 1874, some numbered "53" (NY, PH, POM) are perhaps also paratypi.—Tragacantha Pulsiferae (Gray) O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 947. 1891. Phaca Pulsiferae (Gray) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 357. 1929.

The typical form of A. Pulsiferae is easily distinguished from among several small-flowered astragali of its region by the extraordinarily long, widely spreading hairs which clothe the leaves and fruits. It is an inconspicuous but delicately delightful plant with marked individuality of aspect because of the diffuse fanlike branching of the rather few and very slender stems, the tiny, whitish flowers, and the greatly oblique, papery-membranous, thinly long-hirsute pods. It has somewhat the habit of A. ammodytes Pall. When growing in loose sand the root-crown is always buried and the lower stipules are united into a sheathing cup, but plants from stiffer soils which are composed of sand compacted with basalt pebbles, have a superficial root-crown and stipules not or at least less strongly connate (cf. Ripley & Barneby 5967, RSA).