Astragalus flavus var. candicans

  • Title

    Astragalus flavus var. candicans

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus flavus var. candicans A.Gray

  • Description

    104b. Astragalus flavus var. candicans

    Closely resembling var. flavus, but usually of shorter duration, forming smaller plants when old, and sometimes flowering the first season; calyx (as given in the key) smaller and narrower, densely white-strigulose; ovules (6) 8-14.—Collections: 16 (iv); representative: Eastwood & Howell 9289 (CAS, RSA, WS); Jones 5294g (CAS, NY, POM); Ripley & Barneby 2929 (CAS, RSA).

    Habitats of var. flavus, but at lower elevations, 2000-5900 feet, local but forming extensive colonies in the valleys of the Sevier, Virgin, and Kanab Rivers in southwestern Utah, west to the Muddy River in Clark County, Nevada, and adjoining Arizona; passing east up the Littie Colorado River into Apache and Navajo Counties, Arizona, and San Juan County, Utah, these populations intergrading with var. flavus.—Map No. 43.—April to June.

    Astragalus flavus var. candicans (turning white, of the silvery foliage) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 12: 54. 1876.—"Near Richfield, Utah, at 5900 feet, in loose ashy soil, Lester F. Ward, in Powell’s Expedition."—Holotypus, collected June 19, 1875, GH! isotypi, NY, PH, US (Ward 246)1—A. confertiflorus (with crowded flowers) Gray in Proc. Amer. Acad. 13: 368. 1878, based on the preceding, amplified by: "near St. George, Palmer, finely in flower" (Palmer 113, in 1877, GH, MO, NY!).—Cnemidophacos confertiflorus (Gray) Rydb. in Bull. Torr. Club 40: 52. 1913.

    The var. candicans was originally described from ripe fruiting specimens apparently differing from the original A. flavus, still known at the time only from Nuttall’s original gathering, in its denser silvery pubescence. Flowering material collected in the Virgin Valley by Palmer two seasons later enabled Gray to raise his variety to the rank of species, now further distinguished from A. flavus by its stricter and denser spikes of smaller flowers, these "not at all yellow." These criteria are still diagnostic of var. candicans as it occurs in Sevier, Washington, and Kane Counties, Utah, but they are not immutable. Their failure in a large area in northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah is described under var. flavus.

    In Nevada the flowers of var. candicans are agreeably fragrant.