Native Plants
Plant Database
Search for native plants by scientific name, common name or family. If you are not sure what you are looking for, try the Combination Search or our Recommended Species lists.
Astragalus calycosus var. monophyllidius
Astragalus calycosus Torr. ex S. Watson var. monophyllidius (Rydb.) Barneby
One-leaflet Torrey's Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s):
USDA Symbol: ASCAM2
USDA Native Status: L48 (N)
"Low, sometimes dwarf or even diminutive, tufted, matted, or rarely mounded, essentially acaulescent, perennial, with a slender or at length stout and woody taproot and multicipital root-crown or closely forking caudex, densely strigulose throughout with straight, appressed, contiguous and parallel hairs up to 0.5-0.75 (1) mm. long, the herbage canescent or silvery, the vesture of the upper leaf-surface often turning a greenish-golden color when dried; stems 0, rarely up to 2 cm. long, the internodes then nearly always concealed by imbricated stipules." (bibref: 1814).
"Differing from the nearly sympatric forms of the Torrey milk-vetch only in the loss of the last lateral pair of leaflets in all (or all but a very few) leaves, A. c. var. monophyllidius is but a minor, and most probably a very recent modification, scarcely deserving taxonomic recognition. The colonies of plants known to me along Currant Creek and on the slope falling eastward from Pinto Summit in Eureka County are essentially uniform, however, and seem to replace typical var. calycosus in their area of dispersal.." (bibref: 1814).
From the Image Gallery
No images of this plant
Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: 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 1-13 cm. long, with slender or filiform, rarely rather stiff, leaflets solitary, terminal, 4-16 mm. long, when only 3 (as commonly) palmately trifoliolate, when more numerous usually crowded, the rachis mostly 1 cm. long or less, in one var. up to 4.5 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 loosely but usually shortly 1-8-, more rarely loosely 7-17-flowered, the flowers ascending or spreading, the axis usually less than 3 cm., rarely up to 7 cm. 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 4.7-10.6 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 3.7-6.4 (6.7) mm. long, 2.2-4.5 mm. in diameter, the erect or somewhat incurved, subulate or triangular teeth 0.5-3 (4.2) mm. long, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, marcescent; petals whitish (drying ochroleucous), flesh-color, milky-blue, pink, or bright 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, 9.5-16.5 (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, 9-17 (19.7) mm. long, apical sinus of the wings unappendaged, 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 lobes (0.7) 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 sometimes minutely 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: Pink , PurpleBloom Time: May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Petals pink-purple." (bibref: 1814).
Distribution
USA: NV , UTNative Distribution: "Forming colonies but known only from a restricted area in northeastern Nye and Eureka Counties, eastcentral Nevada." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Open gravelly hillsides, in scattered juniper and piņon forest, on limestone, 5600-6500 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. monophyllidius in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus calycosus var. monophyllidius in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus calycosus var. monophyllidius
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus