Astragalus Douglasii var. Parishii

Habit and stature of var. Douglasii, very variable in pubescence, the herbage green or cinereous, the leaflets glabrous on both sides, strigulose beneath, or thinly to densely strigulose or rarely villosulous on both sides, the hairs commonly straight and appressed, sometimes loosely ascending and more or less sinuous; calyx 4-6 mm. long, the tube 2.6-4. 1 mm. long, 2.5-3.6 mm. in diameter, the teeth 0.7-1.9 (2.2) mm. long; banner 8.1-12 mm. long, 6-9 mm. wide; wings (0.4 mm. longer to 1.4 mm. shorter than the banner) 7.9-10.7 mm. long, the claws 2.6-4 mm., the blades 5.9—7.4 mm. long, 1.9—3.3 mm. wide; keel (as long or up to 1.3 mm. shorter than the wings) 7.8-9.6 mm. long, the claws 2.8-4.3 mm., the blades 5—6 mm. long, 2.6—3 mm. wide; pod mostly 2.5—4, rarely up to 5 cm. long, the funicular flange 1-2.5 mm. wide, the valves strigulose; ovules 42-62 (76, average about 55).—Collections: 36 (i); representative: Clokey 5267 (NY, TEX, WS); Raven 9659 (CAS, RSA); Balls 13,482 (CAS); Munz 15,143 (CAS, POM); Harbison 44,800 (RSA, SD).

Gravelly flats and openings in pine or oak forest, 4000-7700 feet, locally plentiful and rather common in the mountains of interior southern California, from the San Bernardino south through the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa to the Cuyamaca Mountains and south into extreme northern Baja California.—Map No. 113.—May to August, occasionally into October.

Astragalus Douglasii var. Parishii (Gray) Jones, Contrib. West. Bot. 8: 6. 1898, based on A. Parishii (Samuel Bonsall Parish, 1838—1928, pioneer botanist in s. California) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 19: 75. 1883.—"Common in San Bernardino Co., S. B. & W. F. Parish."— Lectotypus, Parish 1407, GH! isotypi (Parish Bros.), from San Jacinto Mountain, DS (herb. Parish.), S. B. Parish in June, 1882, US! paratypi, Parish 402, 605, GH!—Phaca Parishii (Gray) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 344. 1929.

Phaca pseudoocarpa (simulating A. oocarpus) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24: 343. 1929.— "Type collected in the Cuiamaca Mountains, southern California, 1875, Palmer 68..."— Holotypus, NY!

Phaca topoensis (of Topo = Cantillas Canyon) Rydb., l.c. 1929.—‘Type collected at Topo, Lower California, October, 1882, Orcutt 621 (Gray Herb.)."—Holotypus, GH!

The present variety is poorly characterized, as already pointed out by Jepson who maintained it (1936, p. 351) on the combined basis of a banner relatively short and broad in relation to the wings and a robust habit of growth. Applying these standards of comparison Jepson traced var. Douglasii south to the border of Baja California, for a relatively long banner and slender growth-habit coincide here and there through the length of the species-range.

The calycine characters stressed in the foregoing key serve better to divide A. Douglasii into geographically separated races. In the San Bernardino Mountains both varieties have been collected; many intermediate forms difficult to assign to either category are also found there.

The vesture of A. Douglasii as a whole is appressed. In the San Jacinto and Palomar Mountains var. Parishii is represented by a form with loosely strigulose or villosulous herbage, a rather striking minor variant. Farther south, in the Cuyamaca Mountains and Lower California, the indumentum becomes appressed and sometimes quite scanty, as exemplified by the typi of Phaca pseudoocarpa and P. topoensis. The former was said to possess unusually long racemes and the latter unusually narrow leaflets combined with more strongly oblique pods. However, they fall readily into my concept of var. Parishii.

In interior San Diego County one must exercise particular care in distinguishing the Parish milk-vetch from A. oocarpus, for the flowers are nearly identical in form and even the shorttoothed calyx with its band of white hairs around the sinuses of the teeth is alike in both species. The stout, erect stems and stiff-walled pod persistent on the receptacle are the best differential characters of A. oocarpus. Near the crest dividing the cismontane slope from the desert, var. Parishii closely approaches and perhaps occasionally overlaps the range of A. Palmeri, which in ordinary circumstances is immediately recognized by its smaller pod, fewer ovules, and purple flowers. The robust phase of A. Palmeri with pods nearly as large and ochroleucous petals (the so-called A. Vaseyi var. Johnstonii), which is encountered around the head of Coachella Valley, occurs at elevations well below A. Douglasii at this latitude.

Typification of A. Parishii requires a word of comment, for all the material so annotated by Gray in his own herbarium is not conspecific. Parish’s No. 1407 was chosen as lectotypus, because it is accompanied by a letter from the collector who refers to the plant named after him as abundant in the southern California mountains; moreover, the duplicate in the Parish herbarium was ticketed as type by Parish. The latter was collected in the San Jacinto Mountains, as were the cited paratypi (No. 402, collected in June, 1880, at Oak Grove; No. 605, collected in July of same year). A fourth specimen, from Morongo Pass, April 20, 1882 (GH) was recognized as distinct by Parish, who refers to it as A. Crotalariae (although not Gray’s species of that name, which is our A. pomonensis). This last, apparently included by Gray in A. Parishii, actually represents the coarse form of A. Palmeri mentioned above.