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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems of the year almost 0 up to 11 cm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules scarious, pallied, prominently nerved, 2-6.5 mm. long, all amplexicaul and connate through half to nearly their whole length into a tightly or loosely appressed sheath; leaves (0.7) 1-4 (5) cm. long, with short, thick petioles and (5) 7-13 ("17") crowded, elliptic or oblanceolate, acute or subobtuse, sessile but jointed, dorsally keeled and folded leaflets 1.5-9 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles erect or ascending, or the outer ones prostrate and radiating, 1-4 (5) cm. long; racemes subumbellately 4-15-flowered, the erect and ascending flowers crowded into a dense, ovoid or subglobose head, the axis scarcely elongating, 2-10 (15) mm. long in fruit; bracts broadly scarious-margined, linear-lanceolate, involute, 3-5.5 mm. long; pedicels narrowly turbinate, 0.4-0.8 mm. long, ultimately disjointing with calyx and pod; bracteoles 0; calyx (6.6) 7-9.3 mm. long, densely villous-hirsute with white, rarely mixed with a few black hairs, the membranous, campanulate or ovoid-campanulate tube 3.3-5.3 mm. long, 2.6-3.5 mm. in diameter, the firm, narrowly subulate, commonly incurved teeth 2.9-4.6 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, a trifle tumid or inflated, marcescent around the fruit; petals whitish tinged, or the banner veined, with dull lilac, the blades of the banner and wings silvery-villosulous dorsally; banner gently recurved through about 35 degrees, oblanceolate or narrowly rhombic-obovate, entire or notched at apex, 8.4-11.3 mm. long, 4.2-6 mm. wide; wings 7.4-9.8 mm. long, the claws (3.3) 3.6-5.1 mm., the obliquely elliptic or obovate, obtuse, slightly incurved blades 4.1-6.2 mm. long, 1.7-2.6 mm. wide; keel 6.2-8.1 mm. long, the claws (3.3) 3.6-4.5 mm., the half-obovate or almost half-circular blades 2.9-4.2 mm. long, 1.7-2.1 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 95-100 degrees to the rounded, or triangular and obscurely porrect apex; anthers (0.3) 0.4-0.55 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod ascending or spreading, included in the calyx or almost so, sessile but elevated on an obscure, slender, glabrous gynophore up to 0.5 mm. long, the body subsymmetrically oblong-ovoid, 5.5-7 mm. long, 3-3.5 mm. in diameter, rounded at base, abruptly contracted distally into a very short, erect or declined, cusplike beak, compressed-triquetrous, with low-convex or nearly flat lateral and narrower, sulcate dorsal faces, the papery, densely tomentulose valves inflexed through the lower ? of the pod as an incomplete or sometimes complete septum 0.6-1.4 mm. wide; dehiscence apical, and part-way down through the ventral suture, after falling; ovules (5) 6-8; seeds brown, smooth, dull, 1.5-1.8 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Jul , Aug , Sep
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish tinged, or the banner veined, with dull lilac." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: CA , NV
Native Distribution: "Rare and local, known only from five summits of the Sierra Nevada enclosing Lake Tahoe to the north, west, and south; Mt. Stanford and Mt. Lola, Nevada County, Tinker’s Knob, Placer County, and Mt. Tallac, Eldorado County, California; Mt. Rose, Washoe County, Nevada." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Dry exposed ridges and open gravelly slopes near and above timber line, 8800-10,500 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 austiniae in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus austiniae in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus austiniae