Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems few, in most collected specimens appearing solitary, arising directly from the root-crown in young plants, or subsequently from simple or sparingly branched, very slender, widely creeping rhizome-like caudex-branches, subterranean for a space of 3â
Leaf: "Stipules 1.59 mm. long, somewhat dimorphic, those at the first exposed nodes connate into a brown, firmly chartaceous, or pallid, subscarious, truncate or bidentate sheath, the longer upper ones herbaceous, connate through half their length or at base only, with deltoid-acuminate or lanceolate, erect, spreading, or rarely deflexed blades; leaves 2-17 cm. long, with slender petiole and rachis, the lowest (commonly) or sometimes all bearing 1-6 pairs of usually distant, shortly petiolulate, filiform or linear-oblong, obtuse or acute, more rarely narrowly oblong and retuse, lateral leaflets wanting or nearly so, the terminal leaflet similar to the rest but continuous with the rachis, or drawn out into an elongated, linear-oblanceolate or filiform blade much longer than the uppermost pair, or the upper leaves, or sometimes all, reduced to a linear-filiform phyllode devoid of lateral leaflets." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles varicate and incurved, (0.7) 1.5-7.5 cm. long; racemes loosely 2-7-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, ultimately spreading and declined, the axis 1-4.5 (5.5) cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, ovate or lanceolate, (0.6) 1-2.2 (2.5) mm. long; pedicels at anthesis slender, ascending, 0.7-2.5 mm. long, in fruit spreading or arched outward, commonly twisted, scarcely thickened, 1.2-3.1 mm. long; bracteoles commonly 0, minute when present, calyx (3.7) 4-6 mm. long, strigulose like the herbage with white and often some shorter black hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.5-1 mm. deep, the campanulate tube (2.3) 2.5-3.5 mm. long, 2.5-3 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth (1.4) 1.6-3 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent, usually unruptured; petals whitish or flesh-pink, sometimes veined or suffused with lavender, rarely dull purple throughout; banner abruptly recurved through about 90 degrees, 7.4-10.8 mm. long, 6.2-8.5 mm. wide, the broadly cuneate-flabellate claw expanded into a broadly obovate, suborbicular, or reniform, shallowly notched blade 6-8.5 mm. wide; wings 6.9-10.6 mm. long, the claws 2.4-3.4 mm., the blades 4.6-8.2 mm. long, 2.3-4 mm. wide; keel 7-9.1 mm. long, the claws 2.5-3.4 mm., the blades 4.5-6.1 mm. long, 2.2-2.8 mm. wide." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, sessile, the body subsymmetrically ellipsoid, ovoid, or subglobose, bladdery-inflated, 2-4 cm. long, 1.5-2.4 mm. in diameter, cuneate or rounded at either or both ends, shortly cuspidate or obscurely conic-beaked at apex, subterete or (when greatly inflated) shallowly and openly sulcate ventrally, the sutures both filiform and subequally convex, the thin, glabrous, brightly red- or purple-mottled valves becoming papery, reticulate, ultimately purplish-brown, lustrous, not inflexed, the funicular flange obsolete or up to 0.4 mm. wide; ovules 12-29; seeds brown, nearly smooth or minutely pitted, dull, (2.1) 2.4-3.1 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish or flesh-pink, sometimes veined or suffused with lavender, rarely dull purple throughout." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: ID , MT
Native Distribution: "Apparently not uncommon about the east end of the Snake River Plains, from near the sinks of the Lost Rivers in Butte County, east to western Madison and northwestern Bonneville Counties, Idaho." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Dunes and sandy flats, ± 4400-4800 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

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Additional resources

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