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 2-12 (15) cm. long, with slender petiole and rachis, at least the lowest and sometimes all bearing 1-6 pairs of lateral leaflets, but the uppermost ones quite often reduced to the naked rachis." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles varicate and incurved, (0.7) 1.5-7.5 cm. long; racemes loosely 6-15 (in rare robust individuals up to 25)-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, ultimately spreading and declined, the axis (1) 1.5-8 (15) 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 3.1-4.2 (5.7) 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 2.1-2.6 (3.3) mm. long, 1.6-3 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth 1-1.8 (2.4) 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, 6.3-8.3 (9.5) mm. long, 6-7.5 (9) mm. wide, the broadly cuneate-flabellate claw expanded into a broadly obovate, suborbicular, or reniform, shallowly notched blade 6-8.5 mm. wide; wings 6-7.7 (8.3) mm. long, the claws 2-3 mm., the blades 4.3-5.6 (6) mm. long, 2.1-3.2 (3.7) mm. wide; keel 6.4-7.6 (8.4) mm. long, the claws 2.1-3.2 mm., the blades 4.2-5 (6) mm. long, 2-2.5 (2.8) mm. wide, lunately half-elliptic, incurved through 65-85 (95) degrees into a narrowly triangular, subacute, sometimes porrect apex; anthers 0.45-0.65 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, stipitate or rarely sessile, the stipe (1) 1.5-3.3 mm. long, the body ellipsoid, ovoid, or subglobose, (1.2) 1.5-3 cm. long, (5) 6-15 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: Apr , May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish or flesh-pink, sometimes veined or suffused with lavender, rarely dull purple throughout." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CO , NM , NV , UT
Native Distribution: "Widespread and rather common in the Colorado Basin southward from the Uintah Mountains, Utah, northern Arizona, and southwestern Colorado, extending southeast across the Continental Divide from the San Juan River to the upper Rio Grande in northwestern New Mexico; occasionally west of the Wahsatch Plateau in westcentral, northcentral, and southwestern Utah." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Mobile dunes, sandy plains, sand pockets and gullied talus at the foot of cliffs, sandy badlands, rarely on cinder cones, characteristically associated with red and white sandstones, 4600—7000 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. ceramicus in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus ceramicus var. ceramicus in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus ceramicus var. ceramicus