Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus

Habit of the species, but the herbage consistently white-lanate, almost silvery when young; leaflets 27—39, oblong, flat, (3) 5-20 mm. long; pod usually thinly strigulose, sometimes glabrous.—Collections: 8 (o); representative: Hasse in 1888 (NY, OB); Braunton 682 (DS, NY); G. B. Grant 6317 (DS, MO, UC, WIS); J. B. Davy 7810 (UC).

Habitat of var. pycnostachyus, now very rare or extinct, known only from three or four stations along the coast of southern California, from near Point Hueneme, southern Ventura County, south to the now drained Ballona Marshes in Los Angeles and probably extreme northern Orange Counties.—Map No. 111— July to October.

Astragalus pycnostachyus var. lanosissimus (Rydb.) Munz & McBurney ex Munz in Bull. S. Calif. Acad. Sci. 31: 66. 1932, based on Phaca lanosissima (very woolly) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 357. 1929.—"Type collected at La Bolsa, Los Angeles County, California, in October, 1882, S. B. & W. F. Parish 1117 (Morong Herbarium)."—Holotypus, NY!—Parish specimens, some attributed to S. B. Parish alone, are variously labeled: "La Bolsa, October, 1881" (PH); without locality, "October, 1882" (ND); "No. 1117, Santa Monica" (UC); "No. 1117, Ballona Rancho, October, 1881" (DS, US); "meadow near the seashore, Santa Monica, October, 1882" (WS). Apparently there were two collections, one from Santa Monica in 1882 (the typus; probably represented also at ND, UC, WS), and another from La Bolsa = Ballona in 1881 (at PH, US, and in herb. Parish, DS), later mixed and distributed in part under the same serial number.

The southern form of the brine milk-vetch, var. lanosissimus, differed from var. pycnostachyus chiefly in the short calyx-teeth, short peduncles, and slightly longer pod enclosing more numerous ovules and seeds. The dense lanate vesture of the leaves was also characteristic, but a few almost equally white forms of var. pycnostachyus have been collected. It is appropriate to speak of var. lanosissimus in the past tense, for it is in all probability extinct, like Potentilla multifida Lehm., its former associate in the Ballona Marshes. It has not been collected to my knowledge in the past fifty years, and my own attempts to see it during several years’ residence in the Los Angeles area were unavailing. Possibly it may still exist on the Government reservations near Point Hueneme, but there is no hope of its survival near Santa Monica or southward.