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Astragalus caricinus
Astragalus caricinus (M.E. Jones) Barneby
Buckwheat Milkvetch
Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonym(s): Astragalus lyallii var. caricinus
USDA Symbol: ASCA12
USDA Native Status: L48 (N)
"Slender, but stiff and wiry, with a woody taproot and at length knotty caudex, densely gray-pubescent throughout, the herbage villous with mixed sinuous and straighter ascending hairs up to 1-1.3 mm. long, the stems subappressed-pilose, the lowest 3-4 abbreviated internodes white-tomentose; stems numerous, erect and ascending, (1) 1.5-3 dm. long, simple or bearing a few subbasal spurs and an occasional branchlet from the axil next below the first peduncle." (bibref: 1814).
"Along the Snake River in Idaho the buckwheat milk-vetch, A. caricinus, is easily recognized by its gray-villous herbage and basally tomentose stems combined with tiny, loosely racemose flowers and small, reflexed, bilocular pods." (bibref: 1814).
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Plant Characteristics
Duration: PerennialHabit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems numerous, erect and ascending, (1) 1.5-3 dm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules (2) 3-8 mm. long, early becoming pallid and scarious, the lowest and median ones connate through half their length or more into a tightly amplexicaul (sometimes tardily ruptured) sheath, the upper ones progressively less connate, the uppermost sometimes united by a stipular line or free; leaves 3.5-9 (10.5) cm. long, petioled or the uppermost subsessile, with stiff rachis and 11-19 (23) narrowly elliptic, lance- elliptic, or narrowly oblong, sharply acute, or in some leaves oval, subobtuse or merely mucronulate, flat or loosely folded, at length deciduous leaflets (3) 5-15 (18) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles erect from the 3-5 upper axils, 0.5-5 (7) cm. long, mostly much shorter than the leaf; racemes loosely (5) 10-25-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, early spreading and then declined, the fruiting axis (1.5) 3-10.5 cm. long; bracts submembranous, subulate or setaceous, 1-2.5 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis mostly obconic and 0.4-0.9 mm. long, in fruit divaricate or recurved, 0.6-1.3 (1.5) mm. long, tardily disjointing; bracteoles 0; calyx 3.5-5.5 mm. long, densely villous-villosulous with white or mixed black and white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.2-0.5 mm. deep, the obconic-campanulate tube 2-2.5 (2.8) mm. long, 1.7-2.2 mm. in diameter, the subulate-setaceous teeth (1.3) 1.5-3 mm. long; petals whitish tinged with grayish-lavender, yellowish when dry, commonly marcescent; banner recurved through about 50 degrees flabellate-obcordate or broadly obovate-cuneate, 4.5-6 (7) mm. long, 3.4-5.2 mm. wide; wings 4.5-6.1 mm. long, the claws (1.4) 1.7-2.2 mm., the obliquely obovate, obtuse, strongly incurved blades 3-4.3 mm. long, (1.3) 1.8-2.1 mm. wide, the left one concave and folded over the keel; keel (3.6) 4-5 mm. long, the claws (1.6) 1.8-2.3 mm., the half-circular blades 2.3-2.8 mm. long, 1.4-1.8 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 110-130 degrees to the bluntly deltoid, sometimes obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.3-0.45 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod reflexed, sessile, tardily disjointing (after falling), subsymmetrically lance-ellipsoid or ellipsoid, 6-8.5 mm. long, 2-2.7 (3) mm. in diameter, rounded or cuneate at base, gradually contracted distally and cuspidate at apex, somewhat laterally and triquetrously compressed, with flat or low-concave lateral faces, keeled ventrally by the prominent suture, narrowly sulcate dorsally (the groove sometimes almost closed), the papery, finely reticulate, canescently tomentulose valves inflexed as a complete or nearly complete septum 0.6-1.3 mm. wide produced into the pod's apex; dehiscence not seen; ovules 6-8; seeds olivaceous, purple-speckled, smooth but dull, 2.3-2.8 mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Bloom Information
Bloom Color: White , Yellow , VioletBloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish tinged with grayish-lavender, yellowish when dry, commonly marcescent." (bibref: 1814).
Distribution
USA: ID , OR , WANative Distribution: "Locally plentiful, 2400—4300 feet, along the Snake River and immediate tributaries from the lower Raft River in Cassia County, Idaho, downstream to northern Owyhee County and extending just into eastern Malheur County, Oregon; also disjunctly, at 700—1250 feet, along the Columbia and lower Yakima Rivers in Benton, Grant, and Yakima Counties, Washington.." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Gullied bluffs, barren hillsides, and fallow fields, commonly in sandy soil or on wind-blown dunes derived from basalt substrata, occasionally on shaley clays or stiff loams." (bibref: 1814).
Bibliography
Bibref 1814 - Atlas of North American Astragalus Volume 2 (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.Search More Titles in Bibliography
Additional resources
USDA: Find Astragalus caricinus in USDA PlantsFNA: Find Astragalus caricinus in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus caricinus
Metadata
Record Modified: 2020-12-07Research By: Joseph A. Marcus