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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Annual
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems 2-25 (30) cm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules membranous or broadly membranous- margined, deltoid, triangular-ovate, or lanceolate, pallid or early becoming so, 0.8-2.5 (3) mm. long, semiamplexicaul, glabrous or nearly so dorsally, ciliate with black or white hairs and sometimes a few minute processes; leaves (1) 1.5 4.5 cm. long, the lower ones slender-petioled, the upper subsessile, with (7) 9-13 (15) oblong-oblanceolate, obovate, or broadly to narrowly cuneate, almost consistently retuse, flat or loosely folded leaflets 2-8 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles slender, erect, or spreading and incurved, (1.5) 2.5-7 cm. long, all or at least those of the main stems surpassing the leaf; racemes loosely (1) 3-6-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, early spreading or declined, the axis early elongating, (0) 1-3.5 (4.5) cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous, pallid, ovate-triangular or lanceolate, 0.7-1.3 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis straight, ascending, 0.4-0.7 (0.9) mm. long, in fruit somewhat thickened, decurved, contorted, or coiled, 0.9-1.7 mm. long, persistent; bracteoles 0; calyx (2.6) 2.8-3.5 (4.1) mm. long, loosely strigulose with black, black and white, or exceptionally all white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.4-0.7 mm. deep, the membranous, pallid or purplish tube 1.6-2.1 mm. long, 1.4-1.9 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth mostly (1) 1.2-1.5 mm., more rarely up to 2.3 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals whitish tinged or margined with lilac, pale or bright purple, the banner striate; banner recurved through about 45 degrees, (4.7) 5-7 mm. long, the short, cuneate claw expanded into an ovate, obovate, or suborbicular, notched or emarginate blade 3.5-5.3 mm. wide; wings 4.3-6.2 mm. long, the claws (1.2) 1.5-2 mm., the oblanceolate, obtuse, gently incurved blades 3.3-4.6 mm. long, 1.1-1.6 mm. wide; keel (0.4 mm. longer to 0.4 mm. shorter than the wings) 4.3-5.8 mm. long, the claws (1.4) 1.6-2.2 mm., the lunately half-elliptic blades (3) 3.2-3.8 mm. long, 1.3-1.7 mm. wide, incurved through 45-65 (80) degrees to the narrowly triangular, acute or subacute, often slightly porrect apex; anthers (0.2) 0.25-0.4 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, spreading, or ascending and resupinate from the variably decurved or contorted pedicel, disjointing from an obscure gynophore 0.4-0.8 mm. long, the body lunately linear-ellipsoid, very gently and evenly incurved, 1.2-3 cm. long, (2.2) 2.5-3.1 mm. in diameter, cuneate at base, more abruptly contracted distally into a short terminal cusp, laterally compressed-triquetrous, with s a lowly concave lateral faces broader than the deeply and narrowly sulcate dorsal face, the thin, green or purple-tinged, sparsely strigulose or exceptionally glabrous valves becoming brownish-stramineous, somewhat lustrous, delicately cross-reticulate, inflexed as a complete septum 1-1.9 mm. wide; ovules 12-26; seeds olivaceous, pale or dark brown, sometimes purple-speckled, prominently wrinkled and pitted, dull, 1.5-2.3 (2.5) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Mar , Apr , May
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish tinged or margined with lilac, pale or bright purple, the banner striate." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CA , NV
Native Distribution: "Over most of the Mohave Desert, from lower Owens Valley and Death Valley south to the foothills of the San Bernardino and New York Mountains, east to the Belted Range in southern Nye County, Nevada, and south, becoming rarer, along the west edge of the Colorado Desert to the Mexican border; apparently disjunctly, at 100-1800 feet, on the west coast and interior deserts of Baja California, in lat. 30°-30° 30' N." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Sandy and gravelly flats, desert hillsides, and outwash fans, on granitic and sometimes volcanic rock-formations, apparently of bicentric distribution, widespread in the zones of Larrea and Joshua-tree, about 2000-5200 feet." (bibref: 1814).

Bibliography

Bibref 1814 - Atlas of North American Astragalus Volume 2 (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.

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Additional resources

USDA: Find Astragalus acutirostris in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus acutirostris in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus acutirostris