Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems few, in most collected specimens appearing solitary, arising directly from the root-crown in young plants, or subsequently from simple or sparingly branched, very slender, widely creeping rhizome-like caudex-branches, subterranean for a space of 3â
Leaf: "Stipules 1.59 mm. long, somewhat dimorphic, those at the first exposed nodes connate into a brown, firmly chartaceous, or pallid, subscarious, truncate or bidentate sheath, the longer upper ones herbaceous, connate through half their length or at base only, with deltoid-acuminate or lanceolate, erect, spreading, or rarely deflexed blades; leaves 2.5-17 cm. long, commonly all reduced to the filiform rachis, only some lower leaves with 1-2 (3) pairs of lateral leaflets;." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles varicate and incurved, (0.7) 1.5-7.5 cm. long; racemes loosely 2-7-flowered, the flowers at first ascending, ultimately spreading and declined, the axis 1-4.5 (5.5) cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, ovate or lanceolate, (0.6) 1-2.2 (2.5) mm. long; pedicels at anthesis slender, ascending, 0.7-2.5 mm. long, in fruit spreading or arched outward, commonly twisted, scarcely thickened, 1.2-3.1 mm. long; bracteoles commonly 0, minute when present, calyx (3.7) 4-6 mm. long, strigulose like the herbage with white and often some shorter black hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.5-1 mm. deep, the campanulate tube (2.3) 2.5-3.5 mm. long, 2.5-3 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth (1.4) 1.6-3 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent, usually unruptured; petals whitish or flesh-pink, sometimes veined or suffused with lavender, rarely dull purple throughout; banner abruptly recurved through about 90 degrees, 7.4-10.8 mm. long, 6.2-8.5 mm. wide, the broadly cuneate-flabellate claw expanded into a broadly obovate, suborbicular, or reniform, shallowly notched blade 6-8.5 mm. wide; wings 6.9-10.6 mm. long, the claws 2.4-3.4 mm., the blades 4.6-8.2 mm. long, 2.3-4 mm. wide; keel 7-9.1 mm. long, the claws 2.5-3.4 mm., the blades 4.5-6.1 mm. long, 2.2-2.8 mm. wide." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod pendulous, stipitate or rarely sessile, the stipe 1.5-3 mm. long, the body subsymmetrically ellipsoid, ovoid, or subglobose, bladdery-inflated, (1.2) 1.5-5 cm. long, (5) 6-26 mm. in diameter, cuneate or rounded at either or both ends, shortly cuspidate or obscurely conic-beaked at apex, subterete or (when greatly inflated) shallowly and openly sulcate ventrally, the sutures both filiform and subequally convex, the thin, glabrous, brightly red- or purple-mottled valves becoming papery, reticulate, ultimately purplish-brown, lustrous, not inflexed, the funicular flange obsolete or up to 0.4 mm. wide; ovules 12-29; seeds brown, nearly smooth or minutely pitted, dull, (2.1) 2.4-3.1 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Apr , May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish or flesh-pink, sometimes veined or suffused with lavender, rarely dull purple throughout." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: CO , KS , MT , ND , NE , NM , OK , SD , TX , WY
Native Distribution: "Locally plentiful in scattered stations over the higher Great Plains from western North Dakota and eastern Montana south through eastern Wyoming and Nebraska to the Arkansas Valley in Colorado and western Kansas, and south just into the Oklahoma Panhandle; in Colorado extending west up the Arkansas into Chaffee County and to San Luis Valley in Saguache County, there reaching 8300 feet." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Dunes and sandy hollows in rolling plains, sometimes in sandy fields or on sand bars of intermittent streams, mostly below 7000 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 ceramicus var. filifolius in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus ceramicus var. filifolius