Astragalus californicus (A.Gray) Greene
-
Authors
Rupert C. Barneby
-
Authority
Barneby, Rupert C. 1964. Atlas of North American Astragalus. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 13(1): 1-596.
-
Family
Fabaceae
-
Scientific Name
-
Type
"Yreka, California, E. L. Greene."—Holotypus, dated May 9, 1876, GH! isotypi, CAS (Greene 764, dated May and June, 1874), MO!
-
Synonyms
Astragalus collinus var. californicus A.Gray, Homalobus californicus (A.Gray) A.Heller
-
Description
Species Description - Commonly robust, but diffuse, with a woody taproot and shortly subterranean root-crown or caudex, villous-villosulous nearly throughout with fine, loosely ascending, spreading and incurved, or curly hairs up to (0.5) 0.6-1.1 mm. long, the herbage greenish-cinereous or canescent, the leaflets equally pubescent on both sides or more thinly so and sometimes medially glabrescent or even glabrous above; stems several or numerous, decumbent and ascending in clumps, (1.5) 2-5 dm. long, slender, pallid and leafless at base, becoming stouter and striate upward, simple or bearing spurs or branchlets at 1-3 nodes preceding the first peduncle; stipules (1.5) 2-6.5 mm. long, dimorphic, those at the lowest, leafless nodes connate into a closely amplexicaul, papery-scarious (fragile and easily ruptured) sheath, the median and upper ones submembranous, greenish becoming pallid in age, triangular-acuminate or -caudate, semiamplexicaul-decurrent, the margins of the commonly deflexed blades beset with a few clavate processes; leaves usually divaricate or recurved, 3—8.5 cm. long, all but the lowest subsessile, with 13—21 (23) narrowly oblong- or cuneate-oblanceolate, truncate-retuse or rarely obtuse, flat or loosely folded leaflets (4) 6-20 (23) mm. long; peduncles stiffly erect or incurved-ascending, commonly stout, (3) 6—14 cm. long, nearly always surpassing the leaf; racemes at first rather closely, soon loosely (10) 15—25 (30)-flowered, the flowers early spreading and at full anthesis declined or nodding, the axis elongating, 3—10.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous or broadly membranous-margined, lanceolate or triangular, (1.5) 2—5 mm. long; pedicels densely villous, at anthesis ascending at a wide angle or arched outward, 1.3—2.3 mm. long, in fruit either recurved or straight and divaricate, little thickened, 2.2—3.5 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2; calyx 6.4-9.7 mm. long, silky-villosulous (especially at base) with white and some black or fuscous hairs, the oblique disc (1.2) 1.4—2.1 mm. deep, the tube obliquely cuneate at base, 5.2—7 mm. long, 3.5—4.5 mm. in diameter, the subulate- triangular or broadly triangular teeth (0.9) 1.2-3 mm. long, the ventral pair sometimes longest, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals ochroleucous or yellowish, immaculate; banner recurved through ± 45°, obovate- cuneate or rhombic-oblanceoiate, (11.5) 13—17.4 mm. long, 6—9.6 mm. wide, wings (11) 11.6-14.5 mm. long, the claws 4-6.4 mm., the linear-oblong or oblanceolate, obtuse, subtruncate or obscurely emarginate, slightly incurved blades 6.7-9.1 mm. long, 2-3.4 mm. wide, the inner margins undulate below the middle; keel (9.5) 10.1-12.4 mm. long, the claws 4.1-6.3 mm., the lunately half-obovate or obliquely triangular blades 5.1-6.8 mm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, incurved through 85-100° to the sharply deltoid apex; anthers (0.5) 0.7-1 mm. long; pod pendulous, stipitate, the straight, slender stipe 8-14 mm. long, the linear-oblong body 2.7-4.3 cm. long, 3.4-5 mm. in diameter, straight to quite strongly decurved, tapering at base into the stipe, contracted cuneately or acuminately at apex and finally cuspidate, laterally compressed, bicarinate by the cordlike ventral and the more slender, sometimes undulate dorsal sutures, the faces nearly flat when young becoming low-convex at maturity, the thinly fleshy, commonly mottled valves becoming papery, brownish, finely reticulate, densely to quite thinly or minutely strigulose, exceptionally glabrous, not inflexed; ovules (15) 19-25 (27); seeds brown or olivaceous, purple-speckled, smooth or sparsely pitted, somewhat lustrous, 2.4-3.4 mm. long.
Distribution and Ecology - Dry hillsides, stony ridges, and canyon benches, among sagebrush, in open oak woods, or in openings of coniferous forest, on either metamorphic or basaltic bedrock, 1500-4550 feet, local but forming colonies along the inner foothills of the North Coast Ranges in northeastern California, from the headwaters of the Sacramento River and north base of Mt. Shasta to the upper and middle Klamath River, in Shasta and Siskiyou Counties, extending north in the Siskiyou foothills just into southern Jackson County, Oregon.—Map No. 31.—April to early July.
-
Discussion
The Klamath milk-vetch, A. californicus, is one of several astragali, native to northeastern California, with ochroleucous flowers of moderate size, but it is the only one with villosulous foliage and stems; and the very long and narrow, straight or decurved pod tapering at base into the long stipe is amply distinctive. Although the species has every technical character of subsect. Inversi, opinion has been divided as to its near relationships. It was first described as a variety of A. collinus and was maintained in sect. Collini by Rydberg (1924, p. 14; 1929, p. 276, as Homalobus), whereas Jones alligned it with A. inversus and A. stenophyllus in the section equivalent to our Cusickiani. There is no real suggestion in the flower of the peculiar basally pouched, Cuphea-like calyx proper to sect. Collini, although the villous pubescence and thickened ventral suture of the pod recall genuine A. collinus. It is perhaps transitional between the two groups.
Around the western edge of the Klamath Basin A. californicus is found occasionally in the sagebrush association of the common intermountain type, but it's area of greatest vigor and abundance lies in the mixed oak-ceanothus and oak-conifer woodlands of the inner North Coast Range. It is especially common along the Klamath River between Yreka and the mouth of Scott River where it occurs (at about 1500 feet) on metamorphosed granites and serpentines, associated with a local race of A. Purshii var. tinctus.
-
Objects
-
Distribution
California United States of America North America| Oregon United States of America North America|