Astragalus Hallii var. Hallii

  • Title

    Astragalus Hallii var. Hallii

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus hallii A.Gray var. hallii

  • Description

    46a. Astragalus Hallii var. Hallii

    Herbage commonly green, thinly pubescent, subcanescently so in arid sites, the stems glabrous or nearly so toward the base; stems decumbent or prostrate with ascending tips, mature plants forming, broad, low clumps; leaflets (13) 19-27 (31); peduncles commonly prostrate in fruit, the pods therefore humistrate and variably oriented, ascending, spreading, or declined; petals purple or reddish- violet, with paler claws and pale, striate eye in the banner; pod stipitate, the stipe 1-2 mm. long (concealed by the calyx), the body narrowly oblong-ellipsoid, or widest above the middle and thus subclavately ellipsoid, straight or a trifle incurved, (12) 13-24 (27) mm. long, (3) 4-7 (8.5) mm. in diameter, cuneate or attenuate at base, abruptly cuspidate-beaked, a little obcompressed, either rounded or shallowly and openly grooved dorsally, the ventral suture thick and prominent, the valves becoming rather stiffly papery, stramineous or brownish, glabrous or strigulose with scattered white or rarely fuscous hairs up to 0.2—0.3 mm. long; ovules 20-30.—Collections: 36 (vii); representative: W. A. Weber 4892 (CAS, SMU, TEX, WS); Clokey 3550 (CAS, NY, TEX); Ripley & Barneby 7197 (CAS, NY, RSA), 10,417 (CAS, NY, RSA); C. F. Baker 376 (NY).

    Dry hillsides, gravelly clay flats, mountain meadows, nearly always among sagebrush, 7650-10,000 feet, widely dispersed and rather common in the valleys and parks of the Colorado Rocky Mountains about the headwaters of the Grand, Gunnison, Dolores and South Platte Rivers and the Rio Grande, extending south to both slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Taos and Colfax Counties, New Mexico.—Map No. 18.—June to September.

    Astragalus Hallii (Elihu Hall, 1822-1882, with J. P. Harbour and C. C. Parry, a pioneer botanist in the centr. Colorado Rockies in 1862) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 6: 224. 1864.—"Valleys of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado Territory, lat. 39-41°, coll. Hall & Harbour, no. 121."—Holotypus, GH! isotypi, G, K, MO, NY, OXF, P, PH, US!—Tragacantha Hallii (Gray) O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 945. 1891. A. gracilentus var. Hallii (Gray) Jones, Contrib. West. Bot. 8: 13. 1898. Homalobus Hallii (Gray) Rydb. in Bull. Torr. Club 32: 667. 1905. Pisophaca Hallii (Gray) Rydb. in N. Amer. FI. 24: 326. 1929.

    Astragalus Shearii (Cornelius Lott Shear, 1865-1956, distinguished mycologist and plant pathologist) Rydb. in Bull. Torr. Club 31: 562. 1904.—"Colorado: Twin Lakes, 1896, C. L. Shear 3317."—Holotypus, collected August 21, 1896, NY! isotypi, RM, US!—Atelophragma Shearii (Rydb.) Rydb. in op. cit. 32: 660. 1905 ("Shearis").