Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Circular leafy mats mostly 5-20 cm diameter." (reslit: 2892).
Leaf: "Stipules submembranous becoming pallid or brownish, ultimately fragile, deltate to broadly triangular, more or less semiamplexicaul, 1-2.5(-3) mm long; leaves 1.5-3.5 cm long, with very slender, proportionately elongate petiole and (3-)5-9 obovate-cuneate to broadly oblanceolate, emarginate, loosely folded leaflets 1.5-7 mm long spaced along a rachis not over 9 mm long." (reslit: 2892).
Flower: "Flowers (May-June) are blue-violet." (webref: 52). "Peduncles 2-15 mm long, much shorter than the leaf, incurved-ascending; racemes loosely but shortly 2-7-flowered, the flowers in age nodding and variably spreading, the axis little elongating, in fruit not over 1 cm long; bracts membranous, pallid, deltate, 0.4-1 mm long; pedicels very slender, at anthesis about 1 mm long, in fruit not thickened, flexuous, 1.5-2 mm long, disjointing in age; calyx 3.1-4.6 mm long, strigulose with short, appressed, white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.5-0.8 mm, the campanulate tube 2.1-2.8 mm long, 1.7-2 mm diam, the subulate teeth subequal, up to 1-1.8 mm long, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, persistent; petals blue-violet, the banner striate in the pale eye; banner abruptly recurved through 60-80 degrees, broadly obovate-cuneate, notched, 6-6.8 mm long, 4.4-5 mm wide; wings nearly as long, the claw 2-2.5 mm, the oblanceolate, slightly incurved blades 4.2-4.6 mm long, 1.6-2 mm wide, both slightly and subequally incurved; keel 5-5.7 mm long, the claws 2-2.5 mm, the obliquely triangular blades 3.2-3.7 mm long, 1.7-1.9 mm wide, abruptly incurved through about 105 degrees to the sharply triangular, often slightly porrect apex; anthers 0.35-0.4 mm long." (reslit: 2892).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous or (when humistrate) ascending, sessile on and deciduous from the low-conic receptacle, obliquely ovoid, bladdery-inflated, 7-14 mm long, 4.5-7.5 mm diam, rounded at base, contracted distally into a deltate or scarcely differentiated, erect or slightly incurved beak up to 3 mm long, the sutures both filiform, the ventral one less convex than the dorsal, the valves thinly papery, pale green often minutely purple-speckled where exposed to sun (but not mottled), becoming stramineous, subdiaphanous, thinly and minutely strigulose with appressed hairs, not inflexed, the funicular flange obsolete; ovules 8; seeds green turning fulvous, dull, pitted, about 2 mm long." (reslit: 2892).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: Blue , Violet
Bloom Time: May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Flowers are blue-violet. Flowering late spring." (webref: 52).

Distribution

USA: NV
Native Distribution: "Endemic to Nye County, Nevada. Probably found only in a 15x15 mile area on or near Pahute Mesa on Nevada Nuclear Test Site." (webref: 28).
Native Habitat: "Volcanic flat-rock and areas in sagebrush scrub and pinyon-juniper woodland. 1700-2070 m elevation." (webref: 28). "Thin, dry, open residual soils on flat to gently sloping volcanic tuff, mostly in pinyon-juniper woodland with Artemisia nova, Ericameria nana, etc; 5180-6920 feet (1579-2109 meters)." (webref: 52).

Web Reference

Webref 28 - NatureServe Explorer: An online encyclopedia of life (2018) NatureServe
Webref 52 - Rare Plant Fact Sheet (2002) NEVADA NATURAL HERITAGE PROGRAM

Research Literature

Reslit 2892 - A NEW ASTRAGALUS FROM NYE COUNTY, NEVADA (1970) Barneby, Rupert C.

This information was provided by the Florida WIldflower Foundation.
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Additional resources

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