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Astragalus bodinii
Astragalus bodinii Sheldon
Bodin's Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s): Astragalus bodinii var. yukonis, Astragalus stragulus, Astragalus yukonis, Phaca bodinii
USDA Symbol: ASBO
USDA Native Status: L48 (N), AK (N), CAN (N)
"Slender, diffuse or prostrate, loosely matted, with a thick woody taproot and pluricipital, sometimes knotty root-crown at or shortly below soil-level, thinly strigulose with straight, appressed or subappressed hairs up to 0.2-0.5 (0.6) mm. long, the herbage green or subcinereous when young, the leaflets glabrous above; stems usually many, slender or filiform, 1-4.5 dm. long, branching freely at the lower emersed nodes and often also below ground, exceptionally simple, the ultimate branches sometimes subfiliform." (bibref: 1813).
"The Bodin milk-vetch is found in two widely separated main areas of dispersal, one extending from the Yukon Valley east to the Mackenzie and Athabaska Rivers, the other in the southern Rocky Mountains, and in a few widely scattered, probably relic stations in Manitoba, Newfoundland, and central Utah. The Bodin milk-vetch is a delicately pretty astragalus, sometimes resembling forms of A. alpinus, at others recalling the Oroboidei in habit and appearance. It differs technically from these in its sessile and deciduous pod devoid of the rudimentary hyaline septum. In the southern Rocky Mountains it is often associated with A. leptaleus, but is easily distinguished by its determinate root-crown, pink-purple (not white) flowers, and turgid or bladdery (even though small) ascending pod of almost transparent texture." (bibref: 1813).
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Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems usually many, slender or filiform, 1-4.5 dm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules 1-7 mm. long, broadly deltoid to ovate, all connate-amplexicaul, the lowest small, membranous becoming papery- scarious, united into a shortly bidentate, cuplike sheath, the longer upper ones connate through more or less 1/2 their length or at base only, with triangular or lance- triangular, subherbaceous, green or purplish blades, the uppermost sometimes free; leaves (0.7) 1-7 (9) cm. long, the lower ones slender-petioled, the upper subsessile, with 7-17 (19) commonly well-separated, lance-oblong, oblanceolate, or ovate and retuse or emarginate, or oblong-elliptic and subacute, flat, thin-textured leaflets (1) 2-15 (17) mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles slender or filiform, (0.7) 12.5 (18.5) cm. long, usually all but the uppermost ones surpassing the leaf, but sometimes all or most of them (especially those of slender lateral branchlets) shorter; racemes rather compactly to loosely or even remotely (2) 3-15 (16)- flowered, the axis early elongating, (0.2) 0.5-9 (10) cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous to subherbaceous, ovate, triangular, or lanceolate, 0.5-2.5 mm. long; pedicels ascending or slightly arched outward, 0.7-2.2 mm. long, scarcely elongating in fruit; bracteoles 0; calyx 3.8-6.1 (7.2) mm. long, strigulose with black or mixed black and white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.5-1.1 mm. deep, the tube 2.4-3.7 (4) mm. long, 1.7-2.8 (3) mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth (1) 1.2-2.4 mm. long; petals pink-purple to reddish-lilac, drying violet or pallid; banner recurved through about 40-45 degrees, obovate-cuneate, oblanceolate, spatulate- or elliptic-oblanceolate, shallowly or deeply notched, (6.9) 8-11.7 (12.4) mm. long, 3.7-6.8 mm. wide; wings (6.6) 7.2-10 mm. long, the claws 2.7-4 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate, linear-elliptic, or elliptic, obtuse or shallowly emarginate, nearly straight or gently incurved blades 4.2-6.9 mm. long, 1.5-2.7 mm. wide, keel (5.3) 5.5-8.9 mm. long, the claws 2.7-4.5 mm., the obliquely triangular to lunately half-obovate blades (2.6) 3-5.2 mm. long, 1.8-2.4 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 90-95 degrees to the bluntly deltoid (or rarely porrect and then sharply deltoid) apex; anthers 0.3-0.55 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod ascending or loosely spreading (mostly humistrate), sessile on a minute gynophore up to 0.8 (1) mm. long (but mostly shorter), the somewhat obliquely ovoid to lance-, ovoid-, or oblong- ellipsoid body (4.5) 5.5-10 (12) mm. long, (2.2) 3-4.5 mm. in diameter, rounded, broadly obconic, or truncate at base, contracted distally into an erect or slightly declined, short-conical or cusplike beak 0.5-2 mm. long, straight or very slightly either in- or decurved, obscurely trigonous, with low-convex lateral faces and nearly flat to depressed and very openly and shallowly sulcate dorsal face, the very thin, greenish, minutely but sometimes quite densely black-, partly white-, or rarely wholly white-strigulose valves becoming papery-membranous, stramineous, subdiaphanous, faintly reticulate, not inflexed; dehiscence (seldom observed) apparently primarily basal and upward through the ventral suture, the valves eventually separating; ovules 2-10, mostly 5-8; seeds smooth, brown, dull or somewhat lustrous, 1.7-2 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Bloom Information
Bloom Color: Red , Pink , Purple , VioletBloom Time: Jun , Jul , Aug , Sep
Bloom Notes: "Petals pink-purple to reddish-lilac, drying violet or pallid." (bibref: 1813).
Distribution
USA: AK , CO , ID , NE , NM , UT , WYCanada: AB , MB , NL , NT , SK , YT
Native Distribution: "Recorded mostly from below 2000 feet (but possibly a little higher in some stations), valleys of the middle and upper Yukon and Tanana Rivers in central Alaska and southern Yukon, east to the Mackenzie and Athabaska Rivers in Mackenzie and northern Alberta; lake shores, below 1000 feet, central Manitoba; greatly isolated on turfy seashore at Pistolet Bay, Strait of Belle Isle, northern Newfoundland; and again locally frequent in moist meadows, mountain parks, on banks of mountain brooks, about willow thickets, and more rarely along wayside ditches and on alkaline bottomland, mostly between 6000 and 9800 feet in the southern Rocky Mountains, from the headwaters of the Rio Grande in southern Colorado to the upper forks of the Green and North Platte Rivers in Wyoming, descending (or perhaps washed down and only fleetingly established) along the latter stream into western Nebraska as low as 3700 feet; apparently isolated on the upper Fremont River in southcentral Utah." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Of wide but interrupted dispersal, with two main areas of abundance and a few far-flung relic stations eastward: locally common on moist gravelly banks and beds or gravel bars of streams and rivers, sometimes in low sandy meadows, at the edge of aspen or birch thickets, occasionally (near Carcross) on dunes, in Yukon becoming weedy and aggressive in disturbed soil along highway ditches and cleared woodland." (bibref: 1813).
National Wetland Indicator Status
| Region: | AGCP | AK | AW | CB | EMP | GP | HI | MW | NCNE | WMVE |
| Status: | FAC | FACW | FAC | FACW |
Bibliography
Bibref 1813 - Atlas of North American Astragalus (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.Search More Titles in Bibliography
Additional resources
USDA: Find Astragalus bodinii in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus bodinii in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus bodinii
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus