Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems several or numerous, either erect and ascending in clumps or decumbent with incurved-ascending tips, 1.5-5 (7) dm." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules submembranous early becoming pallid and scarious, 2.5-12 mm. long, the lowest broadest and shortest, at least in vernation connate into a subtruncate or bidentate (in age fragile and often ruptured) sheath, the median and upper ones progressively less connate upward, the uppermost free or united by a stipular line, with deltoid or triangular-acuminate, spreading or deflexed blades; leaves (3) 4-12 cm. long, the lowest shortly petioled, the rest subsessile, with (11) 15-29 ovate-oblong, oblong-elliptic, lance-elliptic, or oblanceolate, obtuse (but often mucronulate), exceptionally emarginate, or (in some upper leaves) linear-elliptic and acute, flat or loosely folded leaflets (0.5) 1-2.5 (3.2) cm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles 2.5-13 cm. long, erect or (from decumbent stems) vertically ascending or incurved; racemes 25-75-flowered, dense and ovoid to narrowly cylindroid in early anthesis, the flowers early nodding more or less retrorsely imbricated, becoming looser (especially at base), the axis elongating, 5-18 cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous, lanceolate, nearly always surpassing the pedicel, deflexed in age; pedicels slender or filiform, straight and ascending or arcuately spreading, at anthesis 1-2.5 (3) mm., in fruit (0.5) 1-2.5 (3.2) mm. long; bracteoles 0-2, sometimes conspicuous; calyx 3.5-9.6 mm. long, strigulose with white or some black hairs, the strongly oblique disc 0.6-1.1 mm. deep, the obliquely campanulate, membranous, pallid, or red-purple tube 3.3-5.7 mm. long, 2.4-4 mm. in diameter, either truncate at base and inserted on the pedicel by its ventral corner, or tumid and gibbous-saccate behind the pedicel, the teeth variable, subulate or subulate-setaceous, mostly 1.5-4.5 (6) mm., rarely only 0.7-1.3 mm. long, the ventral pair usually shortest, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals rose-purple, pallid but somewhat tipped or suffused with purple or lilac, or (as commonly) whitish with maculate keel-tip, rarely pure white; banner oblanceolate to oval-obovate, somewhat sigmoidally arched, the blade recurved through about 45 degrees (or in one var. more than 90 degrees), (10) 10.5-17.5 mm. long, 5-7 mm. wide; wings (9.5) 10.5-14.5 mm. long, the claws 3.9-6.5 mm.,des oblong-oblanceolate, obtuse, truncate, or rarely emarginate, straight or slightly incurved, (6) 7.4-10 mm. long, 2-3.2 mm. wide; keel (9.6) 10-13 mm. long, usually shorter than wings or banner (in one var. surpassing the banner), the claws 3.8-6.8 mm., the blades lunately half-elliptic, rarely oblong or half-oblanceolate, gently or abruptly incurved to the bluntly rounded apex, 5.6-8 mm. long, 2.6-3.3 mm. wide; anthers (0.55) 0.6-0.8 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, stipitate, the slender, straight stipe about as long or a little longer than the calyx-tube, 3-5 mm. long, the body linear- or narrowly oblong-ellipsoid, (8) 10-17 (20) mm. long, 2-4.5 mm. in diameter, usually cuneate but sometimes acuminate or abruptly contracted at either end, cuspidate at apex, obcompressed, with low-convex dorsal face and filiform dorsal suture, the ventral face flattened and excavated lengthwise along both sides of the elevated and more or less thickened suture as two deep and narrow, or (when fully mature) shallow and open grooves, the thin, green, strigulose or glabrous valves becoming thinly leathery or papery, stramineous, smooth or faintly reticulate, glabrous or strigulose; ovules 4-14 (15); seeds brown, smooth but dull, 2.5-3.4 mm. long.." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Yellow , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul , Aug
Bloom Notes: "Petals white, ochroleucous, dull straw-yellow, purplish- suffused or -veined, or bright rose-purple (drying violet)." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CO , ID , KS , MT , ND , NE , NM , OK , SD , UT , WY
Native Distribution: "Widespread and all too common over the plains and prairies east of the Rocky Mountains, from the headwaters of the Pecos and Canadian Rivers in northeastern New Mexico north to the Peace River in Alberta and the Pembina in southwestern Manitoba, west across the Continental Divide to upper Clarks Fork in western Montana and just into the Snake River drainage in eastcentral Idaho, and west in New Mexico to the upper Rio Grande Valley; also represented by relatively small-flowered variants in scattered stations around the Colorado and Green River Basins in southwestern Wyoming, western Colorado, central and southwestern Utah, and extreme northcentral Arizona." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Plains, prairies, gullied clay hills and knolls, perhaps most abundant in alluvial clay soils of bottomlands and canyon floors but often found on dry gravelly soils of hillsides and benches, adapted to many types of habitat and bedrock but commonest on sedimentary formations, especially sandstones, limestones, and shales, 1900-7600 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

Search More Titles in Bibliography

Additional resources

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