207 



normally acute at both ends and appearing diamond-shaped, short- 

 petiolulate, 5-12 mm. long, broader wlien short, densely silvery-silky 

 with fine and soft hairs which are rather loose and inclined to be 

 wavy. The type has rather long peduncles and acute leaflets but is 

 without mature fruit, but there can be no mistake about its identity. 

 It has been uniformly referred to A. glareosus which is a form of A, 

 inflexus with short stems and belongs to the Columbia drainage. The 

 stems are woody but slender, spreading flat on the ground and hug- 

 ging it closely as if rooting, with short internodes, mostly only a few 

 inches long (rarely a foot long), caespitose. Stipules rather small be- 

 low but often 1.5 cm. long above, triangular to oblong-lanceolate, hy- 

 aline and veined with green, nearly smooth. Rather common from 

 Monida Montana and central Wyoming and|[the Laramie plains south- 

 ward to New Mexico on the Pacific slope, and westward to the Mogol- 

 lons of Arizona, and northwestward to the base of the Sierras at least 

 as far as Reno Nevada, and throughout the Great Basin, and on the 

 Snake river toward its head in southern Idaho. It grows in mountain 

 valleys in moist meadows on gravelly knolls in sweet soil. Middle 

 Temperate life zone, not in the Columbia Basin except on the upper 

 Snake river. Nuttall's type is a long-peduncled form from Wyoming, 

 with narrow and acute leaflets, in flower, and wMth immature pods 

 and with the characteristic silky pubescence closely appressed. The 

 species has very variable pubescence but it is always silkj' even when 

 short and appressed, but it is rarely as closely app.essed as in tho = e 

 species with pick-shaped hairs, and is finer than in most forms of A. 

 Shortianus, and is without the peculiar woolHness of the A. inflexus 

 group, the flowers also are paler and without the deep-red of inflexus 

 which makes them appear bluer in dried specimens even when they 

 are as deeply colored (doubtless because there is more acid in the 

 flov^ers and becomes bluer in contact with alkaline driers), but mostly 

 they are purple-tipped only, while in inflexus the flowers are more or 

 1 es« tinged with red even when dry (showing a different chemical 

 nature more like A. coccineus), the pods of inflexus even when nearly 

 smooth have long and woolly hairs. 



A. argophyllus blooms from ^lay to .September. There has been 

 much confusion about it, Nuttall mixing it with A. Purshii, Torreyand 

 Gray with A. glareosus. 



This species appears to hybridize with .A. Purshii very rarely, t!Ve 

 tinctus variety forming Astragalus argophyllus x Purshii, when the 

 pods are somewhat narrower, sparsely short-shaggy, with oval and 

 normally obtuse small leaflets of the tinctus variety. Such forms arc 

 541 2d Jones from Salina Canon Utah, 6054h Jones from Nagle's ranch 

 OTi the Kaibab Arizona, and other material from ]\Iillcr canon in the 

 Navajo Basin south of Price Utah. 



Astragalus argophyllus Var. Pauguicensis Jones Cont. 7 671 (1895) 

 and 8 5 (1898). This has densely silvery leaves with oval and obtuse 

 small leaflets, and with linear-lanceolate pods about 2.5 cm. long and 

 5-7 mm. wide, shortly acuminate, very much obcomprcssed. doubly 

 sulcate ventrally and not at all dorsally, finely and closely appressed- 

 pubescent. In meadows at Panguitch Lake Utah. A form with sim- 

 ilar pods 4 cm. long and with narrow leaflets like those of the variety 

 Cnicensis is from Thistle Utah. 



Astragalus argophyllus Var. Martini M. Vtr. This is a very con- 

 densed form without peduncle or very sb.ort if any, with imbricated 

 stipules, with elliptical to diamond-shaped and silvery-silky leaflets, 

 the largest not 1 cm. long, and with claw-like pods hardly 1 cm. long 

 and deeply corrugated, with both sutures narrow and a little raised 

 externally, not sulcate at either suture but a lit<-ie obcomprcssed, 

 ovate, the flat tip sharply arcuate to erect, sparsely short-hairy. Soda 

 Springs Idaho June 19 1901 Rev. Geo. W. ^lartin. A form with lon- 

 ger peduncle I collected at Park City Utah. 



