Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Tufted or mounded, low and dwarf." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules 1.5-6 mm. long, submembranous becoming firmly papery, ovate or triangular, commonly obtuse, about semiamplexicaul; leaves 1-7 cm. long, with slender or filiform, rarely rather stiff, mostly recurved and subpersistent petioles and 1-13 obovate-cuneate, rhombic-obovate, oblanceolate, or elliptic, obtuse, acute, or exceptionally retuse leaflets 2-19 mm. long, leaves often palmately trifoliolate, but as commonly with 1-2 lateral pairs when more numerous usually crowded, the rachis then not over 1 cm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles scapiform, mostly quite slender, 1-7 cm. long and weakly ascending or arcuately reclining in fruit, occasionally stiffer, erect or ascending even in fruit and up to 25 (30) cm. long; racemes (1) 2-6 (8)-flowered, the flowers ascending or spreading, the axis 2-20 (25) mm. long in fruit;; bracts scarious or early becoming so, ovate, 0.5-1.7 (2) mm. long; pedicels ascending, straight or a trifle arched outward, at anthesis 0.7-1.8 (2.5) mm. long, in fruit not or scarcely thickened, 1.1-3 (3.5) mm. long; bracteoles 0, rarely a minute scale; calyx about 5.2-10.6 mm. long, densely strigulose with white and often some black hairs, the symmetric or decidedly oblique disc 0.7-1.1 mm. deep, the tube 4-6.4 (6.7) mm. long, 2.2-4.5 mm. in diameter, the erect or somewhat incurved, subulate or triangular teeth (1) 1.5-4.2 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, marcescent; petals whitish to bright pink-purple, but the wing-tips always white or pallid and the keel-tip nearly always maculate, the banner (and sometimes other petals) tending to persist about the forming pod; banner recurved through about 45 degrees, rarely 90 degrees, 10-16.5 (20.8) mm. long, variable in outline, mostly with cuneate claw abruptly expanded into an ovate, suborbicular, or obreniform blade 6-10 (13) mm. wide; wings slightly longer or shorter than the banner, 10.2-17 (19.7) mm. long, the claws 3.6-6.2 (7.2) mm., the blades (6.3) 7-12 (14) mm. long, through the proximal ?- 3/4 narrowly oblong or oblanceolate and 1.1-3.3 mm. wide, straight or slightly incurved, more or less dilated distally and cleft into 2 oblong or ovate, obtuse or subacute terminal lobes 1.1-4.5 mm. long, the lower (exterior) lobe commonly erect, the inner one usually broader and abruptly twisted inward toward the banner, the intervening sinus naked or appendaged; keel 7.4-11.6 (12.7) mm. long, the claws 3.5-6.2 (7.7) mm., the half-obovate or obliquely oblanceolate blades 4-6.7 mm. long, 2.1-3.2 (3.5) mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 85-100 degrees to the rounded or bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.45-0.6 (0.7) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod ascending (commonly humistrate), sessile, oblong-elliptic, linear-oblong, or lance-acuminate in profile, straight or gently lunate-incurved, (0.8) 1-2.1 (2.5) cm. long, (2.5) 3-4.5 mm. in diameter, rounded at base, cuspidate at apex, compressed-triquetrous with acute ventral and narrow but obtuse lateral angles, the plane or low-convex lateral faces broader than the narrowly grooved dorsal one, the thin, cinereously strigulose valves becoming papery, inflexed as a complete or nearly complete septum; seeds light or dark brown, sometimes nearly black, lustrous but irregularly pitted, 1.9-2.4 (2.8) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish to bright pink-purple." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CA , CO , ID , NM , NV , OR , UT , WY
Native Distribution: "Widespread and locally plentiful from Death Valley northwest along the east slope of Owens Valley to Mono Lake, California, northeast across Nevada to the Bear River in southwestern Wyoming and the head of the Lost Rivers in southcentral Idaho; southeastern Oregon (acc. Peck, 1941, p. 450); east in Utah (becoming rarer) to the Sevier Valley, and south (often intergrading with var. scaposus) to both rims of the Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Dry open hillsides, knolls and ridges, in sandy or gravelly clay soils commonly derived from limestone, but also on granite, shale, sandstone, and probably other formations, in Idaho sometimes in volcanic sand, with pińon, juniper, and sagebrush, mostly 4200-8500, rarely (in Nevada) up to 11,300 feet." (bibref: 1814).

Bibliography

Bibref 1814 - Atlas of North American Astragalus Volume 2 (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.

Search More Titles in Bibliography

Additional resources

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