Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems numerous, slender, radiating and weakly ascending (often supported by sagebrush), 3-30 cm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules (1) 1.5-8 mm. long, dimorphic, the lowest ones approximate and often loosely imbricated, mostly ovate or broadly lanceolate and obtuse, papery-scarious, conspicuously adnate to the petiole-base, decurrent around half to the whole stem's circumference, the median and upper ones narrower and shorter, with triangular-lanceolate, subherbaceous blades; leaves (1.5) 3-14.5 cm. long, with slender petiole and leaflets 9-15, narrowly oblong-oblanceolate to linear-oblong or (in some lower leaves) oval, obtuse or notched, commonly folded or involute leaflets 3-13 mm. long, all jointed." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles weakly incurved-ascending, slender or filiform, (1.5) 3.5-16.5 cm. long, a little shorter to much longer than the leaf; racemes loosely or remotely (4) 5-16-flowered, the flowers nodding, the axis elongating, (1.5) 3-17 cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous, ovate or lanceolate, (0.8) 1-2.5 mm. long; pedicels very slender or filiform, (1.5) 2-4.7 mm. long at anthesis, in fruit straight and ascending at a wide angle or spreading, or more of less contorted, or abruptly refracted, 2.5-6.5 mm. long; bracteoles 0, if present minute; calyx 4.7-6.4 mm. long, strigulose with black, white, or mixed black and white hairs, the subsymmetric disc (0.5) 0.7 1.1 (1.5) mm. deep, the campanulate tube 3.3-4.2 mm. long, 2.2-3.1 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth 1.5-2.2 mm. long; petals whitish, the banner and keel-tip faintly lilac-tinged; banner 8-11.3 mm. long, 5.8-7.2 mm. wide, the shortly cuneate claw expanded into an oblong or ovate-oblong, deeply retuse blade 4-8.6 mm. wide, this pinched in at the middle in the form of two pocket-like folds and thus often appearing fiddle-shaped; wings (0.6-1.8 mm. longer), 9.6-12 mm. long, the claws 3.4-5.1 mm., the obliquely obovate or half- obovate blades 6.2-7.5 mm. long, 3-4.5 mm. wide, erose-emarginate or very shallowly notched at apex; keel 7.2-9.1 mm. long, the claws 3.4-5 mm., the obliquely half-obovate or triangular blades 4-4.8 mm. long, 2.4-2.9 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 95-120 degrees to the rather sharply deltoid, sometimes obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.4-0.65 (0.8) mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod subsessile or very shortly stipitate, the stipe 0.3-1.1 mm. long, the body linear-oblong, linear-oblanceolate, or narrowly elliptic in profile, (1) 1.2-1.8 cm. long, 3-42 mm. in diameter, tapering at base into the stipe, more or less abruptly cuneate at apex, gently decurved or, if nearly straight, the thick, prominent ventral suture slightly more convex than the dorsal one and the tip declined, variably compressed, uni- or bilocular, septum obsolete; ovules (14)16-21; seeds (little known) black, pitted or rugulose, about 2-2.5 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish, the banner and keel-tip faintly lilac-tinged." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: ID
Native Distribution: "Known only from the type-locality in the foothills at the northern edge of the Snake River Plains in Camas County, Idaho." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Stony flats, in stiff soil moist in spring, ± 5000 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

Bibref 1813 - Atlas of North American Astragalus (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.

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Additional resources

USDA: Find Astragalus atratus var. inseptus in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus atratus var. inseptus in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus atratus var. inseptus