Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems several or numerous, decumbent and ascending in clumps, (1.5) 2-5 dm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules (1.5) 2-6.5 mm. long, dimorphic, those at the lowest, leafless nodes connate into a closely amplexicaul, papery-scarious (fragile and easily ruptured) sheath, the median and upper ones submembranous, greenish becoming pallid in age, triangular-acuminate or -caudate, semiamplexicaul-decurrent, the margins of the commonly deflexed blades beset with a few clavate processes; leaves usually divaricate or recurved, 3-8.5 cm. long, all but the lowest subsessile, with 13-21 (23) narrowly oblong- or cuneate-oblanceolate, truncate-retuse or rarely obtuse, flat or loosely folded leaflets (4) 6-20 (23) mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles stiffly erect or incurved-ascending, commonly stout, (3) 6-14 cm. long, nearly always surpassing the leaf; racemes at first rather closely, soon loosely (10) 15-25 (30)-flowered, the flowers early spreading and at full anthesis declined or nodding, the axis elongating, 3-10.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous or broadly membranous-margined, lanceolate or triangular, (1.5) 2-5 mm. long; pedicels densely villous, at anthesis ascending at a wide angle or arched outward, 1.3-2.3 mm. long, in fruit either recurved or straight and divaricate, little thickened, 2.2-3.5 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2; calyx 6.4-9.7 mm. long, silky-villosulous (especially at base) with white and some black or fuscous hairs, the oblique disc (1.2) 1.4-2.1 mm. deep, the tube obliquely cuneate at base, 5.2-7 mm. long, 3.5-4.5 mm. in diameter, the subulate- triangular or broadly triangular teeth (0.9) 1.2-3 mm. long, the ventral pair sometimes longest, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals ochroleucous or yellowish, immaculate; banner recurved through about 45 degrees, obovate- cuneate or rhombic-oblanceoiate, (11.5) 13-17.4 mm. long, 6-9.6 mm. wide, wings (11) 11.6-14.5 mm. long, the claws 4-6.4 mm., the linear-oblong or oblanceolate, obtuse, subtruncate or obscurely emarginate, slightly incurved blades 6.7-9.1 mm. long, 2-3.4 mm. wide, the inner margins undulate below the middle; keel (9.5) 10.1-12.4 mm. long, the claws 4.1-6.3 mm., the lunately half-obovate or obliquely triangular blades 5.1-6.8 mm. long, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide, incurved through 85-100 degrees to the sharply deltoid apex; anthers (0.5) 0.7-1 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, stipitate, the straight, slender stipe 8-14 mm. long, the linear-oblong body 2.7-4.3 cm. long, 3.4-5 mm. in diameter, straight to quite strongly decurved, tapering at base into the stipe, contracted cuneately or acuminately at apex and finally cuspidate, laterally compressed, bicarinate by the cordlike ventral and the more slender, sometimes undulate dorsal sutures, the faces nearly flat when young becoming low-convex at maturity, the thinly fleshy, commonly mottled valves becoming papery, brownish, finely reticulate, densely to quite thinly or minutely strigulose, exceptionally glabrous, not inflexed; ovules (15) 19-25 (27); seeds brown or olivaceous, purple-speckled, smooth or sparsely pitted, somewhat lustrous, 2.4-3.4 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Yellow
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals ochroleucous or yellowish, immaculate." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: CA , OR
Native Distribution: "Local but forming colonies along the inner foothills of the North Coast Ranges in northeastern California, from the headwaters of the Sacramento River and north base of Mt. Shasta to the upper and middle Klamath River, in Shasta and Siskiyou Counties, extending north in the Siskiyou foothills just into southern Jackson County, Oregon." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Dry hillsides, stony ridges, and canyon benches, among sagebrush, in open oak woods, or in openings of coniferous forest, on either metamorphic or basaltic bedrock, 1500-4550 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

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Additional resources

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