Oxytropis DC
Plants cushion-like, or with leaves or spreading stems arising from a caudex; 1–35 cm high; glandular viscid, or not glandular viscid. Aerial stems erect, or decumbent; densely hairy (or hidden by stipules). Leaves distributed along the stems, or mostly basal (usually); alternate; marcescent. Stipules scale-like; sheathing, or not sheathing (usually); brown, or white, or colourless. Petioles 5–60 mm long. Blades 1–12 cm long; 3–25 mm wide; with pinnate veins, or with inconspicuous veins; glabrous (rarely), or hairy (usually); with hairs on the adaxial surface only, or with hairs on the abaxial surface only, or with hairs equally dense on both surfaces. Blades adaxial surface dull, or shiny. Leaflet arrangement pinnate; leaflets (3–)5–33; leaflets 1.5–10 mm long; leaflets linear, or oblong, or elliptic, or ovate, or lanceolate.
Flowering stems 0.5–25 cm long; without leaves; glabrous, or hairy. Flowers solitary, or in inflorescences. Inflorescence racemose; 0.1–6 cm long. Flowers per inflorescence 1–13; small, less than 5 mm in diameter or length, or medium-sized, 5–15 mm in diameter or length, or large, more than 15 mm in diameter or length. Floral scales glabrous, or hairy all over. Calyx green, or yellow, or brown, or black; tubular; 5-lobed. Calyx teeth without or with few glandular verrucae, or with abundant glandular verrucae. Petals 5; yellow, or orange, or pink, or purple, or blue; unlobed, or 2-lobed; 7–30 mm long. Corolla papilionaceous. Corolla keel with a pointed tip. Stamens 10. Stigmas per style 1. Ovules 4–30. Fruit with calyx persisting; a legume; ellipsoid, or ovoid, or elongate-cylindrical, or obovate, or oblong; 8–30 mm long; 2–10 mm wide; sessile, or stalked; dehiscent; yellowish, or black, or brown, or green at maturity; hairy (usually), or glabrous, or glabrescent. Legume unilocular. Seeds 3–25; 1–3 mm long; black, or brown.
Chromosome information. 2n = 16, 96.
Distribution. Common, or uncommon, or rare. Arctic Islands: Baffin, Parry Islands, Banks, Victoria, King William, Southampton, Coats.
Notes. Porsild (1943) stated: ‘Of the numerous critical species of plants in the flora of boreal and arctic North America, most of the members of the genus Oxytropis, as shown by Fernald (1925), have been much misunderstood by earlier writers. Hooker (1834) clearly did not understand the genus, nor did John Macoun in his catalogue of Canadian Plants, nor in more recent times J.M. Macoun and Theodore Holm (1921). In addition to taxonomic difficulties the genus offers a number of geographical puzzles, as pointed out by Simmons (1913) p. 111."
The "Revision of the North American species of Oxytropis" produced by Barneby (1952), began as a less ambitious project restricted to the western United States. However, as alluded by Porsild above, and in Barneby's own words "... a state of affairs confirmed by chaos on the shelves of many herbaria. The species listed seemed far to outnumber those existing in nature, while their names ... had acquired an abundance of disordered synonyms", the opus grew to include the whole of North America. In an updated summary, and as one of a series of papers contributing treatments for Flora North America (volume containing Fabaceae in progress), Welsh (1991) listed all the names basionyms types and synonyms known to apply to the genus Oxytropis in North America.
Cite this publication as: J.M. Gillett, L.L. Consaul, S.G. Aiken and M.J. Dallwitz (1999 onwards). ‘Fabaceae of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval.’ Version: 15th November 2000. http://http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/. Dallwitz (1980) and Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000) should also be cited (see References).