Astragalus neglectus

  • Title

    Astragalus neglectus

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Astragalus neglectus (Torr. & A.Gray) E.Sheld.

  • Description

    187. Astragalus neglectus

    Commonly robust, the stems glabrous or nearly so. the herbage green, the leaflets glabrous above, thinly pubescent beneath with straight and appressed or narrowly ascending hairs up to 0.3-0.7 mm. long; stems several, mostly stiffly erect and 5-9 dm. long, more rarely slender, ascending and only 2.5-3 dm. long, leafless at base, stramineous, striate, hollow, branched or spurred at 1-several nodes preceding the first peduncle, floriferous upward from near or commonly from well above the middle; stipules- membranous or thinly herbaceous, (1.5) 2-6 mm. long, the lowest broadly ovate, several-nerved, becoming fragile and often irregularly deciduous by late anthesis. semiamplexicaul, the median and upper ones progressively narrower, triangular or lanceolate, glabrous dorsally, thinly ciliate, commonly deflexed; leaves 4—12 cm. long, shortly petioled or the uppermost subsessile. with 11-23 (25) oblong-elliptic, oblong, or oblong-obovate (rarely in some upper leaves, linear-oblong), obtuse or retuse-emarginate, flat leaflets (4) 7-27 (30) mm. long: peduncles rather stiffly erect. (2.5) 3-7.5 cm. long, shorter than the leaf: racemes shortly but loosely (6) 10-20-flowered. the flowers nodding at full anthesis. the axis a little elongating. 1-4.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous becoming papery and fragile, triangular-lanceolate. 1-2.2 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis ascending and arched outward. 1-2 mm. long, in fruit erect, thickened, 2-5 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2: calyx 5.6-S mm. long, strigulose with black, fuscous. and often some intermingled (rarely all) white hairs, the oblique disc 0.6-1.5 mm. deep, the campanulate tube 3.7-5 mm. long, 2.5-3.6 mm. in diameter the subulate teeth 1.8—3 mm. long, all equal or the ventral pair sometimes shortest, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, marcescent; petals whitish, rarely pale yellow, drying ochroleucous; banner gently recurved through ±45° (further in withering), broadly oblanceolate or rhombic-ovate, shallowly emarginate, 11.6-15 mm. long, 5-6.6 mm. wide; wings 10.6-12.9 mm. long, the claws (4.4) 5-6.6 mm. the narrowly oblanceolate, obtuse or subtruncate, gently incurved blades 5-8-6.8 mm. long 1.9-2.6 mm. wide; keel 10.1-12.4 mm. long, the claws 5 6.6 mm., the lunately half-obovate blades 5-6.2 mm. long, 2.2-2 6 mm. wide rather gently incurved through 85-95 (100)° to the obtuse, sometimes obscurely porrect apex, anthers 0.5-0.65 (0.7) mm. long; pod erect, sessile, obliquely ovoid or ovoid-ellipsoid, strongly inflated,1.4-3 cm. long, 8-18 mm. in diameter, rounded at base, contracted distally into a short, triangular-acuminate, laterally flattened beak, shallowly sulcate along the nearly straight ventral and strongly convex dorsal sutures, the thinly fleshy, green, glabrous valves becoming stiffly papery, stramineous or brownish and ultimately dark brown or nearly black, cross-reticulate, either not inflexed or inflexed as a narrow partial septum up to 1 (1.5) mm. wide, the funicular flange narrow, 0.8—1.3 mm. wide; seeds ochraceous, pale brown, or olivaceous, sometimes minutely purple-speckled, smooth but scarcely lustrous, (1.4) 2.3—3 mm. long.—Collections: 51 (o); representative: Sartwell (from Penn Yan, N. Y.), paratypi (GH, NY, WIS); F. J. Hermann 9034 (NY); Sheldon (from Dalton, Minn.) in 1892 (NY, WIS); Fassett 16,680 (NY, WIS); Moyle 987 (OB, WIS); Boivin 12,907 (DAO, NY).

    Lake shores and banks of streams or in cool ravines, sometimes in light shade of overhanging trees, more rarely on limestone cliff ledges, limestone barrens, or in savanna overlying limestone pavement, local but widely dispersed about the Great Lakes, from eastern Ontario (Carleton and Lanark Counties) and western New York (westward from near Syracuse to the Finger Lakes and Niagara River) to west peninsular Michigan and the west shore of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin; thence interruptedly west to the headwaters of the Mississippi in Minnesota and the Big Sioux and Winnipeg Valleys in southeastern Manitoba and extreme northeastern North Dakota.—Map No. 74.—June to September, the fruit long persisting.

    Astragalus neglectus (T. & G.) Sheld. in Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 59. 1894. based on Phaca neglecta (overlooked, confused with A. canadensis) T. & G., Fl. N. Amer. 1: 344. 1838. —"... throughout the Western part of New York from Onondaga Lake to the Falls of Niagara, Mr. Cooper! Dr. J. Smith! Dr. Sartwell! Dr. Kinnicutt! Mr. J. Carey!"—Lectotypus. collected at Lake Onondaga by William Cooper, NY (herb. Torr.)!—Astragalus Cooperi (William Cooper, 1798-1864, zoologist and amateur botanist) Gray. Man. Bot.. Ed. 2. 98. 1856, an illegitimate substitute, the supposed obstacle, an unspecified A. neglectus, apparently non-existent. Tragacantha neglecta (T. & G.) O. Kze.. Rev. Gen. 941. 1891.

    Phaca neglecta fma. Limonia (from Citrus Limonia, the lemon-tree, the flowers supposedly lemon-yellow) Farw. in Papers Mich. Acad. Sci. 3: 100. 1924.—"Southwest corner of Lapeer Co., No. 6179, June 14."—Holotypus not examined; isotypus. collected at Hadley, Lapeer County, Michigan. GH!—Astragalus neglectus fma. Limonia (Farw.) Fern. in Rhodora 39: 318. 1937 ("limonius" but the original epithet apparently a substantive in apposition).

    The Cooper milk-vetch. A. neglectus, is ordinarily a tall, erect, hollow-stemmed plant with the ample, thin-textured foliage of the northern woodlander. The fresh flowers are usually white or greenish-white, fading straw-color when dried, but fma. Limonia. indistinguishable as a herbarium specimen, was described as having petals "bright lemon-yellow fading whitish." an unusual sequence of color-change in the genus. The species has been described as mesophytic, but its preference for riparian habitats does not necessarily imply a reliance on copious water at the root. Probably it is the openness of the situation and the porous nature of the strand soils which provide a suitable microhabitat for an astragalus in a primevally forested region. On dry limestone pavements of the Cloche Peninsula in Ontario. A. neglectus is represented by a comparatively slender, diffuse or weakly ascending form with narrow stems solid to the base and only 2.5-3 dm. tall. Although this ecotype possesses a certain individuality of growth-habit, it does not differ significantly in either flower or fruit.

    Within its range of dispersal A. neglectus is likely to be mistaken only for A. canadensis, with which it is sometimes associated on lake shores in Minnesota and elsewhere. The Canada milk-vetch, much the commoner of the two, is easily recognized by the presence of oblique rhizomes in place of a simple taproot, by the dolabriform hair-attachment, connate stipules, densely many-flowered racemes of nodding flowers, and much narrower, fully bilocular pod.

    The nomenclature of the Cooper milk-vetch requires a word of comment, if only because it appears in the two standard floras of northeastern United States current at mid-century under two different names: A. neglectus (Fernald, 1950, p. 909) and A. Cooperi (Gleason, 1952, p. 417). The latter name was substituted for Phaca neglecta in the belief that the epithet neglectus was preoccupied in Astragalus, probably by A. neglectus Ledeb. (ex Steud., Nom., Ed. 2, 1: 162. 1840), but this, so far as I can learn, is a nomen nudum. The species was generally known as A. Cooperi from 1856 up to the sixth edition of Gray’s Manual in 1890. In 1891 Kuntze revived the epithet neglecta in Tragacantha, and in 1894 Sheldon, following a principle of priority of epithet regardless of the original genus, made the transfer to Astragalus, although he was probably unaware of the true status of A. neglectus Ledeb. Meanwhile there had appeared in 1893 an A. neglectus Freyn (in Osterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 43: 415), ambiguously presented as a binomial (and so taken up by Index Kewensis), although intended, as the original text makes very clear, as a subspecies. Freyn’s intention is confirmed by the fact that Sommier and Levier, who had collected the typus, listed A. neglectus Freyn (in Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital., 1893, p. 526) as a subspecies in this same year. Furthermore Freyn himself later (in Bull. Herb. Bss. 3: 179. 1895) raised the subspecies to the rank of species as A. neglectus (Freyn) Freyn. Unless A. neglectus Ledeb. can be traced back to a description prior to 1894, it seems that A. neglectus (T. & G.) Sheld. is correct and A. neglectus (Freyn) Freyn a later homonym.