Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems numerous, erect and ascending, (1) 1.5-3 dm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules (2) 3-8 mm. long, early becoming pallid and scarious, the lowest and median ones connate through half their length or more into a tightly amplexicaul (sometimes tardily ruptured) sheath, the upper ones progressively less connate, the uppermost sometimes united by a stipular line or free; leaves 3.5-9 (10.5) cm. long, petioled or the uppermost subsessile, with stiff rachis and 11-19 (23) narrowly elliptic, lance- elliptic, or narrowly oblong, sharply acute, or in some leaves oval, subobtuse or merely mucronulate, flat or loosely folded, at length deciduous leaflets (3) 5-15 (18) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles erect from the 3-5 upper axils, 0.5-5 (7) cm. long, mostly much shorter than the leaf; racemes loosely (5) 10-25-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, early spreading and then declined, the fruiting axis (1.5) 3-10.5 cm. long; bracts submembranous, subulate or setaceous, 1-2.5 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis mostly obconic and 0.4-0.9 mm. long, in fruit divaricate or recurved, 0.6-1.3 (1.5) mm. long, tardily disjointing; bracteoles 0; calyx 3.5-5.5 mm. long, densely villous-villosulous with white or mixed black and white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.2-0.5 mm. deep, the obconic-campanulate tube 2-2.5 (2.8) mm. long, 1.7-2.2 mm. in diameter, the subulate-setaceous teeth (1.3) 1.5-3 mm. long; petals whitish tinged with grayish-lavender, yellowish when dry, commonly marcescent; banner recurved through about 50 degrees flabellate-obcordate or broadly obovate-cuneate, 4.5-6 (7) mm. long, 3.4-5.2 mm. wide; wings 4.5-6.1 mm. long, the claws (1.4) 1.7-2.2 mm., the obliquely obovate, obtuse, strongly incurved blades 3-4.3 mm. long, (1.3) 1.8-2.1 mm. wide, the left one concave and folded over the keel; keel (3.6) 4-5 mm. long, the claws (1.6) 1.8-2.3 mm., the half-circular blades 2.3-2.8 mm. long, 1.4-1.8 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 110-130 degrees to the bluntly deltoid, sometimes obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.3-0.45 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod reflexed, sessile, tardily disjointing (after falling), subsymmetrically lance-ellipsoid or ellipsoid, 6-8.5 mm. long, 2-2.7 (3) mm. in diameter, rounded or cuneate at base, gradually contracted distally and cuspidate at apex, somewhat laterally and triquetrously compressed, with flat or low-concave lateral faces, keeled ventrally by the prominent suture, narrowly sulcate dorsally (the groove sometimes almost closed), the papery, finely reticulate, canescently tomentulose valves inflexed as a complete or nearly complete septum 0.6-1.3 mm. wide produced into the pod's apex; dehiscence not seen; ovules 6-8; seeds olivaceous, purple-speckled, smooth but dull, 2.3-2.8 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Yellow , Violet
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish tinged with grayish-lavender, yellowish when dry, commonly marcescent." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: ID , OR , WA
Native Distribution: "Locally plentiful, 2400—4300 feet, along the Snake River and immediate tributaries from the lower Raft River in Cassia County, Idaho, downstream to northern Owyhee County and extending just into eastern Malheur County, Oregon; also disjunctly, at 700—1250 feet, along the Columbia and lower Yakima Rivers in Benton, Grant, and Yakima Counties, Washington.." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Gullied bluffs, barren hillsides, and fallow fields, commonly in sandy soil or on wind-blown dunes derived from basalt substrata, occasionally on shaley clays or stiff loams." (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 caricinus in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus caricinus in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus caricinus