Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius

  • Title

    Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius (A.Gray) F.J.Herm.

  • Description

    89a. Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius

    Leaves 2.5-17 cm. long, commonly all reduced to the filiform rachis, only some lower leaves with 1-2 (3) pairs of lateral leaflets; racemes 2-7-flowered, the axis 1-4.5 (5.5) cm. long in fruit; calyx (3.7) 4-6 mm., the tube (2.3) 2.5-3.5 mm. long, 2.5-3 mm. in diameter, the teeth (1.4) 1.6-3 mm. long; banner 7.4-10.8 mm. long, 6.2-8.5 mm. wide; wings 6.9-10.6 mm. long, the claws 2.4-3.4 mm., the blades 4.6-8.2 mm. long, 2.3-4 mm. wide; keel 7-9.1 mm. long, the claws 2.5-3.4 mm., the blades 4.5-6.1 mm. long, 2.2-2.8 mm. wide; stipe of the pod 1.5-3 mm. long.—Collections: 49 (ii); representative: L. Moyer 479 (NY); C. L. Porter 5722 (NY, RM, SMU, TEX); Goodding 277 (MO, NY, RM); Ripley & Barneby 9083 (CAS, RSA, UTC); Clokey, Schmoll & Bethel 4191 (CAS, WIS, WS); Brandegee 925 (NY); G. W. Stevens 407 (NY).

    Dunes and sandy hollows in rolling plains, sometimes in sandy fields or on sand bars of intermittent streams, mostly below 7000 feet, locally plentiful in scattered stations over the higher Great Plains from western North Dakota and eastern Montana south through eastern Wyoming and Nebraska to the Arkansas Valley in Colorado and western Kansas, and south just into the Oklahoma Panhandle; in Colorado extending west up the Arkansas into Chaffee County and to San Luis Valley in Saguache County, there reaching 8300 feet.—Map No. 33.— Late April to July.

    Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius (Gray) F. J. Hermann in Jour. Wash. Acad. 38: 237. 1948, based on A. pictus var. filifolius (Gray) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 6: 215. 1864, based in turn on A. filifolius (with threadlike leaves) Gray in Pac. R.R. Rep. 12: 42, Pl. I. 1859 (non A. filifolius Clos, 1846), based in turn on Psoralea longifolia Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 741. 1814.—"Upper Louisiana, Bradbury."—Holotypus, labeled "Pursh’s specimen," PH! isotypus, NY (fragm. ex herb. Lambert.)!—Orobus longifolius (Pursh) Nutt., Gen. 2: 95. 1818. Physondra longifolia (Pursh) Raf., Atl. Jour. I1: 145. 1832. Phaca longifolia (Pursh) Nutt. ex T. & G., Fl. N. Amer. 1: 136. 1838. Astragalus ceramicus var. imperfectus (incomplete, of the leaves) Sheld. in Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 19. 1894 (Jan.), an improper substitute of epithet. A. ceramicus var. longifolius (Pursh) Rydb. in Bot. Surv. Neb. 3: 31. 1894 (June) & in Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 3: 154. 1895 (Sept.). A. angustus var. longifolius (Pursh) Jones in Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. II, 5: 635. 1895 (Oct.). A. longifolius (Pursh) Rydb., Fl. Neb. 21: 47, Pl. XI, fig- 79-81. 1895 (Dec.), corrected in Errata to A. ceramicus var. longifolius. A. filifolius (Gray) Smyth in Trans. Kans. Acad. 15: 61. 1895 (non Clos, 1846). A. angustus var. imperfectus (Sheld.) Jones, Contrib. West. Bot. 10: 62. 1902. A. longifolius (Pursh) Gates in Trans. Kans. Acad. 42: 137. 1940 (non Lamk., 1853). A. mitophyllus (thread-leaved) Kearney in Leafl. West. Bot. 4: 216. 1945, a legitimate substitute.

    The var. filifolius is especially common on the sandhills of western Nebraska. The pod in this region is very large, up to 5 cm. long and proportionately swollen; elsewhere pods over 4 cm. long are rarely met with, but in other respects the plants of the prairie states do not vary greatly. All leaves, except a few of the lowest, are reduced to the unadorned rachis which may be truly filiform or a little dilated distally in the form of a linear leaflet. Thus the general aspect of the average plant is leafless and broomlike; the stems are weak and pliant, offering little resistance to the wind. Mention has been made already of a relatively leafy variant with pods of moderate size found on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains in southern Colorado at elevations near 8000 feet. This form, known from only three localities (Crestone, Saguache County, Ramaley & Johnson 14,836, NY; Buena Vista and Salida, Chaffee County, Ripley & Barneby 10,350, RSA & Clements 114, NY), deserves further study.

    Few species, I suppose, have accumulated a more massive synonymy of the purely nomenclatural sort. All fifteen binomial and trinomial combinations listed above are based ultimately on Psoralea longifolia Pursh. At the time of its discovery the painted milk-vetch was an altogether unprecedented type of papilionaceous legume, and early transfers to Orobus and the specially created Physondra recall that fact. When compared subsequently with several of Nuttall’s leafless Homalobi, its affinity to Phaca and Astragalus became apparent, although it still differed from genuine Homalobus in its inflated fruit. Names proposed since 1864, when Gray consolidated these genera into Astragalus sens. lat., reflect the search for epithets acceptable in their category under rules of nomenclature which have shifted as often as the very sands in which the species grows.