Astralagus, Curran, 1885

Ghahremaninejad, Farrokh, Bagheri, Ali & Maassoumi, Ali Asghar, 2012, Two new species of Astragalus L. sect. Incani DC. (Fabaceae) from the Zanjan province (Iran), Adansonia (3) 34 (1), pp. 59-65 : 60-62

Genus Astralagus L. sect. Incani DC.

In Candolle, Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis 2: 304 (1825). — Lectotype: A. incanus L. (designated by Podlech [1990]).

DESCRIPTION

Herbaceous plants or rarely woody at the base, usually acaulescent; stipules free; leaves imparipinnate, rarely tri- or unifoliate; inflorescence dense or lax, usually long pedunculate; bibracteolate; calyx cylindric; pods sessile or stipitate, very variable in form, bilocular, coriaceous to lignified ( Ghahremaninejad 2004a).

REMARKS

The centre of diversity of this section is the Armeno- Iranian floristic province of the Irano-Turanian region ( Takhtajan 1986). The species of this section are distributed in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, West Asia, Caucasus, North Africa and Europe.

This section is the largest and most common bifurcate hairy section in Iran. It has a vast distribution zone in Iran, and occupies a large part of the country in the Elburz and Zagros mounts in north and west Iran ( Ghahremaninejad 2004b). Its endemism ratio is more than 75% (based on Ghahremaninejad & Bagheri 2009; Podlech et al. 2010).