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Astragalus canadensis var. brevidens
Astragalus canadensis L. var. brevidens (Gandog.) Barneby
Shorttooth Canadian Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s): Astragalus brevidens
USDA Symbol: ASCAB
USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N)
"Usually of lower, comparatively more robust growth than A. c. var. Mortoni; the leaflets commonly glabrous but sometimes (especially in western and central Nevada) thinly or even cinereously strigulose above, the hairs up to 0.5-0.9 (1) mm. long, the inflorescence either white- or fuscous-pilosulous with some longer, looser, basifixed hairs up to 0.5-1.1 mm. long, the herbage usually paler green, the thin-textured, often visibly nerved leaflets usually somewhat bicolored, paler beneath than above; the erect or sometimes decumbent and ascending stems (1) 1.5-5.5 dm. long." (bibref: 1814).
"The A. c. var. brevidens is closely related to A. c. var. Mortoni, with which it has often been inadvertently confused or deliberately united as an inconsequential form. No one familiar with the slender woodland A. c. var. Mortoni, as it abounds in the forests of the Northwest, will be content to identify it with the typical and extreme phases of var. brevidens, as this occurs in the deserts of the Great Basin; but at the same time it is difficult to express the perceived reality in exact diagnostic terms. The form of the calyx-teeth, emphasized in the varietal key as a differential character, is somewhat variable. Some individual plants cannot be assigned to either variety on this basis alone unless the growth-habit and pod, unfortunately not often available in a late-flowering species, are taken into account. Practical difficulty occurs, however, only where the ranges of the two varieties meet in eastern Washington and adjacent British Columbia. The forms of A. c. var. brevidens found on the upper Columbia River and its affluents sometimes approach A. c. var. Mortoni in calycine characters, but the short-beaked pod is densely, often canescently villosulous with short, crisped hairs and thus easily distinguished from the glabres- cent, long-beaked pod of A. c. var. Mortoni. In the same area var. brevidens is found around potholes on the basalt plains, about seeps and springs in the coulees, and on the shores of alkaline lakes and ponds; whereas A. c. var. Mortoni, although it does come out and down to the edge of the sagebrush around Spokane and elsewhere, is almost always associated with timber. Near their common frontier in southern Idaho and southwestern Montana, the varieties are more abruptly separated morphologically." (bibref: 1814).
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Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "The erect or sometimes decumbent and ascending stems (1) 1.5-5.5 dm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules connate, (3) 4-14 mm. long, but the upper ones often shortly so, the sheath ruptured only in some very robust specimens; leaves 5-15 (23) cm. long, shortly petioled or the upper ones subsessile, with (7) 15-23 (25) nearly always mucronulate leaflets (0.5) 0.7-3 (4) cm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles stout, (4) 5-15 (20) cm. long, either longer or shorter than the leaf; racemes (2.5) 4-9.5 (15) cm. long, 2.5-3.5 cm. in diameter at full anthesis; the mostly subcontiguous flowers ascending in bud, early spreading and then declined and nearly always retrorsely imbricated, forming an at first tapering or ovoid but at full anthesis cylindric spike 2.5-16 cm. long, 2.5-3.5 cm. in diameter, the axis little elongating, the erect fruits crowded into an oblong heads; bracts membranous, pallid, narrowly lance-acuminate or linear-caudate (exceptionally ovate), (1.2) 2-10 mm. long, reflexed in fruit; pedicels ascending or a little arched outward, at anthesis 0.5-1.7 mm., in fruit 1.2-3.5 (4) mm. long; bracteoles 0-2, commonly present; calyx (6.8) 7.1-10.5 (11) mm. long, strigulose or pilosulous with white, fuscous, or black hairs, sometimes subglabrous medially, the strongly oblique disc (0.7) 1-2 mm. deep, the tube (4.6) 5.1-8.5 (9) mm. long, 3.2-5 mm. in diameter, the broadly subulate or deltoid teeth (1) 1.3-2.5 (3) mm. long, the ventral pair nearly always much broader and commonly shorter than the rest, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, marcescent; petals ochroleucous, stramineous, or greenish-white, rarely tinged with dull purple; banner (11.7) 12.5-17 (17.5) mm. long, (4.6) 5-8 (8.8) mm. widewide; wings (10.4) 11-15 mm. long, the claws (5) 5.4-7.4 (7.7) mm., the blades (6.3) 6.7-10 mm. long, (1.6) 1.8-3 mm. wide; keel (8.9) 10-13.6 mm., the claws (4.7) 5.1-7 (7.5) mm., the blades (4.4) 5-7.1 mm. long, (2.2) 2.6-3.5 (3.7) mm. widex; anthers 0.5-0.75 (0.8) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod erect, sessile on the slightly elevated receptacle, oblong-cylindroid or -ellipsoid, (9) 10-15 mm. long, 2.9-4 (4.5) mm. in diameter, rounded or truncate at base, abruptly contracted distally into a rigid, erect or quite strongly porrect, cusplike beak 1.5-3 mm. long, either terete or grooved dorsally, obtusely carinate ventrally by the prominent, thick suture, the green, somewhat fleshy, glabrous, strigulose, or exceptionally villosulous valves becoming stiffly papery or leathery, brown and ultimately blackish, transversely rugulose-reticulate and sometimes also tuberculate and wrinkled lengthwise, filamentous within, inflexed as a complete or subcomplete septum 1.5-3 mm. wide; dehiscence tardy, through the beak and part way downward through the ventral suture; ovules (17) 18-25 (28); seeds greenish, ochraceous, grayish-brown, or castaneous, smooth but dull, 1.7-2.4 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Bloom Information
Bloom Color: White , Green , PurpleBloom Time: Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep
Bloom Notes: "Petals ochroleucous, stramineous, or greenish-white, rarely tinged with dull purple." (bibref: 1814).
Distribution
USA: CA , CO , ID , MT , NV , OR , UT , WA , WYCanada: BC
Native Distribution: "Mostly in stiff, often alkaline, alluvial soils of diverse origin, commonly with sagebrush but ascending along water courses into xeric pine forest, widespread, common, and locally abundant, often forming extensive clumps or colonies, nearly throughout the western and northern Great and Columbia Basins, from eastcentral and northeastern California to interior Washington and southern British Columbia, east to the upper Missouri in southwestern Montana, the upper North Platte River in southern Wyoming and northwestern Colorado, northern Utah, and central Nevada; southwestern Utah (Washington County)." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Moist but often summer-dry bottomlands, ditches, creek banks, lake shores, hillsides about springs and seeps, alkaline meadows, and depressions on rolling plains, rarely in dry (or apparently dry) sandy or gravelly soils of brushy hills or lava flows, (750 northward) 1500-8100 feet." (bibref: 1814).
Bibliography
Bibref 1814 - Atlas of North American Astragalus Volume 2 (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.Search More Titles in Bibliography
Additional resources
USDA: Find Astragalus canadensis var. brevidens in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus canadensis var. brevidens in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus canadensis var. brevidens
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus