Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Tufted or mounded, low and dwarf." (bibref: 1814).
Leaf: "Stipules 1.5-6 mm. long, submembranous becoming firmly papery, ovate or triangular, commonly obtuse, about semiamplexicaul; leaves 1-13 cm. long, with slender or filiform, rarely rather stiff, mostly recurved and subpersistent petioles and 1-13 obovate-cuneate, rhombic-obovate, oblanceolate, or elliptic, obtuse, acute, or exceptionally retuse leaflets 2-19 mm. long, when only 3 (as commonly) palmately trifoliolate, when more numerous usually crowded, the rachis mostly 1 cm. long or less, in one var. up to 4.5 cm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Flower: "Peduncles scapiform, mostly quite slender, 1-7 cm. long and weakly ascending or arcuately reclining in fruit, occasionally stiffer, erect or ascending even in fruit and up to 25 (30) cm. long; racemes loosely but usually shortly 1-8-, more rarely loosely 7-17-flowered, the flowers ascending or spreading, the axis usually less than 3 cm., rarely up to 7 cm. long in fruit; bracts scarious or early becoming so, ovate, 0.5-1.7 (2) mm. long; pedicels ascending, straight or a trifle arched outward, at anthesis 0.7-1.8 (2.5) mm. long, in fruit not or scarcely thickened, 1.1-3 (3.5) mm. long; bracteoles 0, rarely a minute scale; calyx 4.7-10.6 mm. long, densely strigulose with white and often some black hairs, the symmetric or decidedly oblique disc 0.7-1.1 mm. deep, the tube 3.7-6.4 (6.7) mm. long, 2.2-4.5 mm. in diameter, the erect or somewhat incurved, subulate or triangular teeth 0.5-3 (4.2) mm. long, the whole becoming papery, ruptured, marcescent; petals pink-purple except for the white wing-tips, the banner (and sometimes other petals) tending to persist about the forming pod; banner recurved through about 45 degrees, rarely 90 degrees, 10.5-14 mm. long, variable in outline, mostly with cuneate claw abruptly expanded into an ovate, suborbicular, or obreniform blade 6-10 (13) mm. wide; wings slightly longer or shorter than the banner, 9-12 mm. long, the terminal lobes 0.7-2.2 mm. long, the sinus unappendaged; the claws 3.6-6.2 (7.2) mm., the blades (6.3) 7-12 (14) mm. long, through the proximal ?- 3/4 narrowly oblong or oblanceolate and 1.1-3.3 mm. wide, straight or slightly incurved, more or less dilated distally and cleft into 2 oblong or ovate, obtuse or subacute lobes (0.7) 1-4.5 mm. long, the lower (exterior) lobe commonly erect, the inner one usually broader and abruptly twisted inward toward the banner, the intervening sinus sometimes minutely appendaged; keel 7.5-9 (10) mm. long, the claws 3.5-6.2 (7.7) mm., the half-obovate or obliquely oblanceolate blades 4-6.7 mm. long, 2.1-3.2 (3.5) mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 85-100 degrees to the rounded or bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.45-0.6 (0.7) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).
Fruit: "Pod ascending (commonly humistrate), sessile, oblong-elliptic, linear-oblong, or lance-acuminate in profile, straight or gently lunate-incurved, (0.8) 1-2.1 (2.5) cm. long, (2.5) 3-4.5 mm. in diameter, rounded at base, cuspidate at apex, compressed-triquetrous with acute ventral and narrow but obtuse lateral angles, the plane or low-convex lateral faces broader than the narrowly grooved dorsal one, the thin, cinereously strigulose valves becoming papery, inflexed as a complete or nearly complete septum; seeds light or dark brown, sometimes nearly black, lustrous but irregularly pitted, 1.9-2.4 (2.8) mm. long." (bibref: 1814).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Purple
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Petals pink-purple except for the white wing-tips." (bibref: 1814).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CO , NM , NV , UT
Native Distribution: "In the drainage of the Colorado, Little Colorado, and San Juan Rivers, from southeastern Nevada across northern Arizona to southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico; in Arizona extending south to the Salt River in Gila County and to the upper Verde River in Yavapai County, in the latter region occurring in mesquite-grassland at about 3300 feet; reported on questionable authority from the Rio Grande Valley in Socorro County, New Mexico (Plank in 1895, NY) and from the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona (Wilcox in 1893, NY)." (bibref: 1814).
Native Habitat: "Sandy or gravelly hillsides, plains, and mesas, chiefly on sandstone and limestone, forming colonies and locally abundant in juniper or piņon-juniper forest between 4400 and 6200 feet." (bibref: 1814).

Bibliography

Bibref 1814 - Atlas of North American Astragalus Volume 2 (1964) Barneby, Rupert C.

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Additional resources

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