Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems few or several, erect, or diffuse and ascending, (1)1.5-4 dm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules (1) 2-5 mm. long, those at the buried and the first emersed nodes membranous, ovate, more or less adnate to the suppressed or vestigial petiole, semi- or fully amplexicaul-decurrent, the upper ones herbaceous, cauline, with deltoid or triangular-acuminate, squarrose or deflexed blades; leaves 3-10 cm. long, shortly petioled, with (5) 9-15 rather distant, elliptic-oblong, oblanceolate, or linear, obtuse, retuse, rarely subacute, flat or folded leaflets 3-25 mm. long, all jointed to the rigid, tapering rachis." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles strictly erect or divaricate, 3-9 (12) cm. long, either longer or shorter than the leaf; racemes loosely (5) 8-20 (26)-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, declined in age, the axis elongating, (1.5) 3-12 (17) cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous, rarely green and firm, ovate or lanceolate, 2-3.5 (5) mm. long; pedicels at anthesis ascending, 1-1.8 mm. long, in fruit much thickened, recurved, 1.5-2.3 mm. long; bracteoles usually 2, sometimes up to 1 mm. long, rarely 0; calyx (5.8) 7.5-9 mm. long, strigulose with black, rarely white and a few black hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.9-1.5 (2) mm. deep, the membranous, pallid or purplish, cylindric or exceptionally deep-campanulate tube (4.6) 5.8-7.5 mm. long, 2-3.5 mm. in diameter, rounded or more commonly tapering and turbinate at base, the subulate or triangular-subulate teeth 1.2-1.8 mm. long, the whole becoming hyaline, ruptured, marcescent; petals pink-purple with white wing-tips, rarely all white; banner varying from oblanceolate to broadly rhombic- obovate, shallowly notched, (12) 13.5-18 mm. long, 5.2-9.5 mm. wide; wings 11.3-15.5 mm. long, the claws 5.7-8.4 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate or narrowly oblong, obtuse, nearly straight blades 6.1-9 mm. long, 1.8-2.4 mm. wide; keel 10.6-13.3 mm. long, the claws 6-7.6 mm., the broadly lunate blades (4.6) 5-6.2 mm. long, 2.3-2.8 mm. wide, gently incurved through 80-95 degrees to the rounded apex; anthers 0.55-0.75 (0.8) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod deflexed, sessile, lance- or oblong- ellipsoid, 2-5.5 cm. long, (5) 6-10 mm. in diameter, commonly a little sigmoidally arched (decurved proximally and incurved distally) but sometimes straight or gently incurved its whole length, rounded or obtusely cuneate at base, gradually or abruptly contracted upward into a long-acuminate or shorter and triangular, laterally compressed, rigidly cuspidate beak, elsewhere obcompressed, the ventral face usually low-convex and obtusely carinate by the salient, cordlike suture (but this, especially in strongly incurved pods, depressed and lying in a groove), the dorsal face either flattened or shallowly concave, the lateral angles rather narrow but obtuse, the fleshy, red- or brownish-mottled, strigulose valves becoming stiffly leathery, stramineous or brownish, transversely rugulose-reticulate, not inflexed; dehiscence apical, basal, and through the ventral suture; ovules 32-42; seeds brown, smooth or punctate, dull, 2.4-2.9 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Purple
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Petals pink-purple with white wing-tips, rarely all white." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: CA , NV
Native Distribution: "Locally plentiful and rather frequent in Inyo and Mono Counties, California, from the Panamint Mountains north through Owens Valley to Mono Lake, and in western Nevada from Death Valley north, becoming local northward, to Pyramid Lake and the lower Humboldt River in Washoe and Pershing Counties." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Dry hillsides and valley floors, in alkaline gravelly soils overlying granite or basaltic bedrock, commonly in open places among sagebrush or in piņon-juniper forest, rarely on dunes, 4000-8000 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 casei in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus casei in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus casei