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Astragalus agnicidus
Astragalus agnicidus Barneby
Humboldt County Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s):
USDA Symbol: ASAG
USDA Native Status: L48 (N)
"Tall, robust, leafy, perennial but sometimes flowering the first season, the stems becoming indurated at base but hardly caudiciform, nearly glabrous proximally, becoming thinly villous upward like the herbage with fine, weak, horizontal or widely ascending, straight or subsinuous hairs up to 1-1.6 mm. long, the herbage green but the leaflets bicolored, pallid and pubescent along the midrib beneath, deeper green and glabrous above, long-ciliate, the inflorescence black- hairy; stems several, erect and virgately ascending, (3) 4-9 dm. long, spurred or branched at 1-several nodes preceding the first peduncle, often purplish at base, becoming stramineous, striate, and hollow upward, floriferous from ± 8-12 nodes above the middle." (bibref: 1813).
"The lambkill millc-vetch resembles A. Congdoni and A. umbraticus m the relatively coarse, leafy habit of growth, in the white flowers, and in form of the pod; but it differs from both in many technical characters of which the thin, villous pubescence of weak and long spreading hairs and the dense racemes are especially notable. The more copiously pubescent A. Congdoni of the Sierra Nevada has much longer, pluriovulate pods, while A. umbraticus, also of the Coast Ranges but not ranging quite so far south, has nearly glabrous foliage and fully glabrous pods, longer and more strongly incurved It was Henry Tosten who noticed the poisonous nature of A. agnicidus, identifying it as the cause of severe losses among his lambs, and thus brought it to the notice o Mr. Tracy. The toxic principle, presumably a locoine, is still to be isolated." (bibref: 1813).
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Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems several, erect and virgately ascending, (3) 4-9 dm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules submembranous, pallid, 4-15 mm. long, the lowest ovate or triangular, decurrent around nearly the whole stem s circumference, the rest lance-acuminate or -caudate, semiamplexicaul-decurrent, the deflexed blades glabrous dorsally or nearly so, ciliate and often beset with a few minute processes; leaves (3.5) 5-12 (16) cm. long, the lowest slender-petioled, the rest subsessile, with (13) 19-27 ovate, lance-oblong, or (especially in some lower leaves) oblong-obovate, truncate and mucronulate, retuse, obtuse or rarely subacute, flat, thin-textured, faintly penninerved leaflets (3) 5-22 mm. long, the midrib prominent beneath." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles erect, 5-13 cm. long, about equaling the leaf; racemes densely (10) 15-40-flowered, the flowers early spreading and then declined, the axis little elongating, (1) 2-4.5 cm. long in fruits; bracts submembranous becoming hyaline, deflexed in age, narrowly lanceolate or linear-caudate, 2-6 mm. long, pedicels at full anthesis arched out- and downward, 0.6-0.8 mm. long, in fruit thickened, 1-2-1.8 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2, minute when present; calyx 6.6-9 mm. long, thinly villous-villosulous with black hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.7-1.2 mm. deep, the membranous, campanulate, pallid or purplish tube 3.2-4.3 mm. long, 2.4-3 mm. in diameter, the linear or narrowly lance-acuminate or -caudate, herbaceous teeth 3.3-4.9 mm. long; petals white, immaculate; banner gently recurved through 45 degrees, broadly oblanceolate, rhombic, or rhombic- obovate, notched, 9.1-11 mm. long, 4.5-5.3 mm. wide; wings 8.3-9.2 mm. long, the claws 3.3-4.2 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate or obliquely triangular-obovate, obtuse or (when broad) obliquely emarginate, nearly straight blades 5.4-6.5 mm. long, 1.5-2.6 mm. wide; keel 7-7.4 mm. long, the claws 3.2-4.1 mm., the half- obovate blades 3.9-4.2 mm. long, 2-2.4 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 90-95 degrees to the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.5-0.6 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod declined or deflexed, subsessile, the stipe 0.3-0.4 mm. long, the body obliquely lanceolate in profile, 11-15 mm. long, 3-3.4 mm. in diameter, slightly incurved, rounded at base, contracted at apex into a narrowly triangular-subulate, cuspidate, slightly declined beak 2-3.5 mm. long, otherwise compressed-triquetrous, keeled ventrally by the prominent, gently concave-arcuate suture, the almost plane lateral faces nearly twice as broad as the narrowly grooved dorsal one, the thin, green valves becoming papery, stramineous or ultimately brownish, finely cross-reticulate, villosulous with loosely ascending hairs, the septum complete, 1.5-2.2 mm. wide; ovules 8-9; seeds (not quite ripe) brown, smooth, 1.7-2.1 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Bloom Information
Bloom Color: WhiteBloom Time: May , Jun , Jul , Aug
Bloom Notes: "Petals white, immaculate." (bibref: 1813).
Distribution
USA: CANative Distribution: "Apparently very local, known only from the type-station in the outer North Coast Range, near Miranda, Humboldt County, Californi." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Openings on brushy ridges in partially timbered forest land, about 2500 feeta." (bibref: 1813).
Bibliography
Bibref 1813 - Atlas of North American Astragalus (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.Search More Titles in Bibliography
Additional resources
USDA: Find Astragalus agnicidus in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus agnicidus in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus agnicidus
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus