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Astragalus cyaneus

Astragalus cyaneus A. Gray

Cyanic Milkvetch

Fabaceae (Pea family)

Synonym(s):

USDA Symbol: ASCY

USDA Native Status: L48 (N)

"Low but robust, acaulescent or nearly so, with a thick, woody taproot and shortly forking, at length knotty caudex, strigulose throughout with straight, appressed or subappressed, filiform or slightly flattened hairs up to 0.4-0.75 mm. long, the herbage cinereous or greenish, the leaflets pubescent on both sides, but of a brighter green beneath the vesture above; stems several, either reduced to crowns or a little developed and up to 6 cm. long, but always shorter than the leaves, and the internodes not over 1.5 cm. long; stipules pallid, papery or early becoming so, several-nerved, lanceolate, triangular, or triangular-acuminate, 4-9 mm. long, decurrent around ½ to the whole stem's circumference, free; leaves 6-18 cm. long, with stiff, grooved petiole and (15) 17-29 obovate to elliptic, obtuse, acute, or sometimes retuse, flat leaflets 4-19 mm. long; peduncles stout, (4) 6-13 cm. long, a little shorter than the leaves, ascending at anthesis, arcuately reclining or prostrate and radiating in fruit; racemes loosely (9) 12-22 (25)­flowered, the flowers loosely spreading or sometimes declined in age (but not characteristically nodding), the axis somewhat elongating, (2) 4-14 (20) cm. long in fruit; bracts thinly herbaceous becoming papery-membranous, lanceolate or linear-acuminate, 2.5-6 mm. long; pedicels erect or ascending, straight or nearly so, at anthesis 1-2.5 mm., in fruit clavately thickened, 2.5-4.5 mm. long; bracteoles 2, conspicuous or sometimes rudimentary; calyx 11.3-15 mm. long, strigulose with mixed black and white hairs, the oblique disc 2-2.8 mm. deep, the usually purplish, cylindric, or deeply and broadly campanulate tube 8.2-10.6 mm. long, 3.7-5.8 mm. in diameter, the subulate or lance-subulate teeth 2.3-4.6 mm. Iong; petals pink-purple, the banner with a pale, striate eye; banner gently re­curved through± 40°, spatulate-oblanceolate or ovate-cuneate, shallowly notched, 18-22 mm. long, 9.2-11 mm. wide; wings 17.9-21.9 mm. long, the claws 8.2-10.6 mm., the narrowly oblong, obtuse or obscurely emarginate, nearly straight blades 11.2-13.6 mm. long, 3.1-3.6 mm. wide; keel 16.3-18 mm. long, the claws 9-10.7 mm., the lunately half-elliptic or half-obovate blades 7 .3-8.7 mm. long, 3.4-4 mm. wide, incurved through 90-95° to the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.65-0.8 mm long; pod ascending (humistrate), obliquely oblong-ellipsoid, 2.5-5 cm. long, 7-13 mm. in diameter, gently incurved, obtuse at base, obcompressed through the lower ¾ or more and thence passing upward into a triangular- or lance-acuminate, laterally compressed, cuspidate beak, openly sulcate along both sutures, both sutures prominent and cordlike, the ventral one stouter, the green or purple-tinged, thickly fleshy, strigulose valves becoming rigidly woody, strongly reticulate, stramineous or brownish, 1-2 mm. thick when fully ripe, inflexed behind the dorsal suture to ± the depth of the valve-wall, the septum forming a narrowly tubular or triquetrous cavity the length of the pod-body, the sutures subcontiguous within, the cross-section therefore didymous; dehiscence apical, tardy, after falling; ovules (35) 39-48; seeds brown, smooth but dull, 2.7-3.4 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

"This plant is relatively common within its limited range." (webref: 50).