Native Plants
Plant Database
Search for native plants by scientific name, common name or family. If you are not sure what you are looking for, try the Combination Search or our Recommended Species lists.
Astragalus alvordensis
Astragalus alvordensis M.E. Jones
Alvord Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s):
USDA Symbol: ASAL9
USDA Native Status: L48 (N)
"Slender, wiry, cinereous throughout with twisted and incumbent hairs up to 0.2-0.5 mm. long, the leaflets sometimes more thinly pubescent and greenish above; stems 1.5-3 dm. long, arising singly or few together from the thickened but scarcely caudiciform root-crown 3-10 cm. below soil-level, simple and naked at base, upon emergence freely and divaricately branching, the branches disposed in the same plane, thus forming flattened sprays of triangular-rhombic outline." (bibref: 1813).
"The Alvord milk-vetch is a modest astragalus, but in every fine detail a remarkable one. The subterranean root-crown and divaricate branching of the stems suggest the growth-habit of some Scytocarpi, but the free stipules and laterally flattened pod are of a quite different type. The combination of small, distant, obovate-obcordate leaflets, tiny, lilac-veined flowers, and pods pendulous from beneath the leaves on stipes usually longer than the calyx is unique in the genus. The pod is variable in length and curvature, usually coiled through more than one complete turn upon itself, but sometimes, when short, no more than strongly hooked.." (bibref: 1813).
From the Image Gallery
No images of this plant
Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems 1.5-3 dm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules 0.5-2.5 mm. long, the lowest papery-scarious, decurrent around more or less 2/3 the stem's circumference, the median and upper ones herbaceous, deltoid-ovate; leaves widely spreading or deflexed, (1) 1.5-5 cm. long, with (7) 11-21 narrowly or broadly obovate and retuse, or obcordate, flat or conduplicate leaflets 1-7 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles divaricate, commonly disposed to hang below the subtending leaf, 1-3.5 cm. long; racemes loosely 5-14-flowered; bracts 0.5-1 mm. long; pedicels slender, at anthesis about 1 mm., in fruit straight and ascending, or arched outward, up to 2 mm. long; bracteoles 0; calyx 2.5-3 mm. long, villosulous with incurved, white and often partly black hairs, the disc about 0.6 mm. deep, the campanulate tube 2-2.5 mm. long, 2 mm. in diameter, the deltoid or narrowly triangular teeth 0.5-0.7 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals pale lilac, or whitish to yellowish veined and suffused with lilac, the keel-tip commonly purplish; banner abruptly recurved through 90 degrees, obovate-cuneate, emarginate, 7-8.2 mm. long, 4.4-4.8 mm. wide; wings (slightly longer or shorter) 6.5 7.2 mm. long, the claws 2.2-2.7 mm., the narrowly obovate, obtuse, lunately incurved blades 4.5-5.2 mm. long, 1.8-2.2 (2.5) mm. wide; keel 4.6-5.3 mm. long, the claws 2.2-2.7 mm., the almost half-circular blades 2.5-3 mm. long, 2.1-2.3 mm. wide, incurved through 120 degrees to the bluntly deltoid, sometimes obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.35-0.45 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod loosely pendulous, stipitate, the stipe 2-9 mm. long, gradually expanded upward into the narrowly oblong, abruptly acute or shortly acuminate body 3-4 mm. wide, this variable in length and curvature, either strongly hamate or commonly coiled through l 1/2-2 spirals, strongly compressed, bicarinate by the salient but slender sutures, the thin, pale green, villosulous valves becoming papery, stramineous, delicately reticulate, not inflexed; dehiscence tardy, apparently both apical and upward through the stipe, after falling; ovules 10-16; seeds (not seen fully ripe) about 2 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Bloom Information
Bloom Color: White , Yellow , Purple , VioletBloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals pale lilac, or whitish to yellowish veined and suffused with lilac, the keel-tip commonly purplish." (bibref: 1813).
Distribution
USA: NV , ORNative Distribution: "Rare and local on and near the Owyhee-Quinn River divide in southern Harney and Malheur Counties, Oregon, and extreme northern Humboldt County, Nevada." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Barren knolls, bluffs, and desert hillsides, in loose sandy soils of volcanic origin." (bibref: 1813).
Bibliography
Bibref 1813 - Atlas of North American Astragalus (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.Search More Titles in Bibliography
Additional resources
USDA: Find Astragalus alvordensis in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus alvordensis in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus alvordensis
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus