Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems of the year reduced to crowns or nearly so." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules scarious, pallid except for the prominent herbaceous midrib, 2-8 mm. long, those of the lowest leaves smallest, all amplexicaul and connate through over half to nearly their whole length into a loose, bidentate sheath, densely strigulose dorsally, at least when young; leaves all reduced to phyllodia, dimorphic, the lowest spreading, linear-oblanceolate, 1-4.5 (7) cm. long, gradually expanded upward into a more or less involute blade up to 2.5 mm. wide, early withering- persistent, the later ones erect, stiff, narrowly linear, very acute and subspinulose at apex, (6) 10-17 cm. long, usually tightly inrolled, subterete but ventrally channeled, less than 1 mm. in diameter, occasionally with only the margins elevated and then up to 1.4 (2) mm. wide." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles scapose, erect, slender, wiry, (2) 4-9 cm. long, shorter than the longer leaves; racemes very loosely 7-23-flowered, the flowers ascending, the axis (4.5) 6-24 cm. long in fruit; bracts scarious, boat-shaped, ovate or lanceolate, mostly acute, 2-4.5 mm. long; pedicels erect or narrowly ascending, at anthesis slender, 1-2 mm., in fruit somewhat thickened, 1.5-2.5 mm. long, tardily, if at all, disjointing; bracteoles 0; calyx 4.5-6.7 mm. long, densely white-strigulose, the symmetric disc 0.4-0.8 mm. deep, the campanulate tube 2-3 mm. long, 1.8-2.3 mm. in diameter, becoming papery and strongly 5 -nerved in age, the narrowly subulate-aristiform, very acute, somewhat rigid, stellately spreading teeth 2.5-4 mm. long; petals pink-purple, the banner striate; banner sharply recurved through about 90 degrees, suborbicular-cuneate, notched, 6.2-8.2 mm. long, 5-7.4 mm. wide; wings 6.3-8 mm. long, the claws 2.3-2.9 mm., the oblong-elliptic, obtuse blades 4.3-5.6 mm. long, 1.6-2 (2.5) mm. wide, both incurved but the left one more so than the right and its inner margin infolded; keel 6-6.6 mm. long, the claws 2.4-3.2 mm., the blades 4-4.8 mm. long, 2.1-2.6 mm. wide, incurved through about 100 degrees to the triangular, subacute apex; anthers 0.4-0.5 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod erect or narrowly ascending, tardily deciduous from the receptacle, obliquely lanceolate or oblong-elliptic in profile, a trifle incurved just above the base and straight thereafter, 8-12 mm. long, 1.7-3 mm. in diameter, rounded at base, tapering distally into the cuspidate apex, laterally compressed and two-sided, bicarinate by the sutures (the ventral one the thicker and more prominent), the faces low-convex, the thinly fleshy, green but often purple-speckled or minutely red-mottled, glabrous or strigulose valves becoming stramineous, stiffly papery, reticulate near the sutures but smooth toward the middle; ovules 4-8, commonly 6; seeds not seen." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: Pink , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals pink-purple, the banner striate." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: UT
Native Distribution: "Forming colonies but very local, known only from about the mouth of the Green River gorge within and near Dinosaur National Monument, Uintah County, Utah." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Ledges and pockets of sandstone cliffs or outcrops, sometimes on talus slopes, 4800-5550 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

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Additional resources

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