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Bessey's Locoweed - Oxytropis besseyi
Native Species
Global Rank:
G5
State Rank:
S4
C-value:
4
Agency Status
USFWS:
USFS:
BLM:
External Links
General Description
Acaulescent. Herbage silvery strigose with long and short hairs. Leaflets 7 to 21, lanceolate, 5–15 mm long. Stipules membranous, adnate to the petiole, pilose. Inflorescence of 5 to 30 flowers, 8–20 cm high including the peduncle. Flowers magenta, fading to blue; calyx hirsute with white hairs; sepals 2–6 mm long, narrowly lanceolate; banner 15–23 mm long; wings 2-lobed. Legumes ascending, 15–20 mm long, white-villous, inflated, rupturing the persistent calyx (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
In Montana we have varieties
besseyi,
argophylla (Rydb.) Barneby,
fallax Barneby, and
ventosa (Greene) Barneby (Kartesz in prep. 2012), although Lesica (2012) only recognizes the first two listed.
Species Range
Montana Range
Range Descriptions
Native
Range Comments
MT south to UT and CO (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 205
(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version)
Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density
Recency
(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)
Habitat
Sparsely-vegetated, stony soil of grasslands, steppe, dry woodlands; plains, valleys to subalpine (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
Ecology
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus appositus,
Bombus bifarius,
Bombus centralis,
Bombus fervidus,
Bombus flavifrons,
Bombus melanopygus,
Bombus nevadensis,
Bombus rufocinctus,
Bombus sylvicola,
Bombus occidentalis,
Bombus insularis, and
Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Bauer 1983, Shaw and Taylor 1986, Williams et al. 2014, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014).
Stewardship Responsibility
References
- Literature Cited AboveLegend:
View Online Publication- Bauer, P.J. 1983. Bumblebee pollination relationships on the Beartooth Plateau tundra of Southern Montana. American Journal of Botany. 70(1): 134-144.
- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
Macior, L.M. 1974. Pollination ecology of the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Melanderia 15: 1-59.- Miller-Struttmann, N.E. and C. Galen. 2014. High-altitude multi-taskers: bumble bee food plant use broadens along an altitudinal productivity gradient. Oecologia 176:1033-1045.
- Shaw, D.C. and R.J. Taylor.1986. Pollination ecology of an alpine fell-field community in the North Cascades. Northwest Science 60:21-31.
- Williams, P., R. Thorp, L. Richardson, and S. Colla. 2014. Bumble Bees of North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 208 p.
- Additional ReferencesLegend: View Online Publication
Do you know of a citation we're missing?- Jones, W. W. 1901. Preliminary flora of Gallatin County. M.S. Thesis. Bozeman, MT: Montana State College. 78 pp.
- Joslin, G.J. 1975. Behavior and environmental selection by Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) during surrmer and fall in the First and Second Yellow Mule drainages, Madison County, Montana. M.Sc. Thesis. Bozeman, Montana: Montana State University, Bozeman. 65 p.
- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
- Quire, R.L. 2013. The sagebrush steppe of Montana and southeastern Idaho shows evidence of high native plant diversity, stability, and resistance to the detrimental effects of nonnative plant species. M.Sc. Thesis. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 124 p.
- Seipel, T.F. 2006. Plant species diversity in the sagebrush steppe of Montana. M.Sc. Thesis. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 87 p.
- Simanonok, M. 2018. Plant-pollinator network assembly after wildfire. Ph.D. Dissertation. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 123 p.
- Simanonok, M.P. and L.A. Burkle. 2019. Nesting success of wood-cavity-nesting bees declines with increasing time since wildfire. Ecology and Evolution 9:12436-12445.
- Skilbred, Chester L. 1979. Plant succession on five naturally revegetated strip-mined deposits at Colstrip, Montana. M.Sc. Thesis. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 128 pp.
- Wiman, N.G. 2001. Dynamics of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L.) infested plant communities influenced by flea beetles in the Aphthona complex (Colepotera: Chrysomelidae). M.Sc. Thesis. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 148 p.
- Wood, A.K. 1987. Ecology of a prairie mule deer population. Ph.D. Dissertation. Bozeman, MT: Montana State University. 205 p.
- Web Search Engines for Articles on "Bessey's Locoweed"
