Astragalus gilviflorus

Astragalus drummondii

Drummond's Milk-Vetch

Flower Bottom

West Block
Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park
30-June-2004

Note the blue-tipped keel.

Note that the key to the genera in Flora of Alberta requires that the flowers NOT be yellow. However, the flowers of this species are yellowish white. The key does this in an attempt to exclude Lotus. The most common Lotus on the Canadian prairies, L. corniculatus, has deep yellow flowers arranged in an umbel-like inflorescence.

Note also that Flora of Alberta requires "stems generally less than 5 mm thick at base". The stems of this specimen are just over 6 mm thick halfway up their length, but are significantly thinner than this at the base.

Drummondii: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species.

stems evident, erect or decumbent, often branched and leafy; plants NOT [densely caespitose or pulvinate; leaves many, crowded; flowers often included among leaves or barely exceeding them], plants NOT [low, cushion-like, matted or straggling]

plants taller than 10 cm

plants densely hairy

stems generally less than 5 mm thick at base, NOT 5-10 mm thick

leaves NOT needle-like

leaflets NOT narrowly linear

leaflets shorter than 2-4 cm long

flowers about 20 mm long; NOT 10-15 mm long

flowers white, yellow, or greenish; NOT [at least partly reddish, purplish, or bluish] (Budd's Flora)

petals mostly yellow, cream or orange, the keel sometimes tinged with blue or blue-tipped; NOT [petals blue, purple or pink or predominantly so (sometimes very pale with only flashes of deeper colour)] (Flora of Alberta)

keel-petals yellow, tips blue; keel petals NOT lavender-tinged

pod dry, dehiscent; NOT plum-like, NOT indehiscent

Astragalus: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus.

herbs; NOT shrubs

plants NOT climbing

leafy stems often present; NOT [usually absent]

leaves pinnately divided; NOT palmately divided

leaflets more than 3

terminal leaflet normal; NOT replaced by a tendril

leaflets NOT [5, pinnately arranged (the lower pair basal and resembling stipules)]

leaves NOT glandular-dotted

inflorescence NOT umbel-like

calyx-lobes NOT [subulate, much longer than the tube]

flowers NOT [pinkish to red or purple]

flowers NOT yellow (FOA)

keel rounded or obtuse at the tip; NOT with a sharp point at the tip

keel NOT truncate

fruit a legume; NOT a loment, NOT segmented

fruit NOT [only slightly longer than wide, with short stout spines, 1-seeded]

Leguminosae: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family.

herbs; NOT shrubs, NOT trees

plants terrestrial or semiaquatic; NOT aquatic

plants NOT with colored milky juice

plants with more than one normal leaf

some or all leaves alternate; NOT [opposite, whorled, or basal]

leaves with stipules

flowers with two floral rings, and with each petal distinct from the others

calyx regular

flowers irregular in shape

corolla pea-like; NOT [with one petal spurred or sac-like]

stamens usually separate or partly so; NOT in a column

fruit a legume; NOT a 3-valved capsule