Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems several or numerous, robust or quite slender, erect and stiffly ascending in clumps, 1-10 (14) cm. long, simple above the immediate base, composed of (1) 2-5 developed internodes (up to 6 cm. long, mostly shorter)." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules scarious, 3-10 (11) mm. long, the lowest connate into a bidentate sheath, this often ruptured in age by the developing stem, the median and upper ones narrower, very shortly connate or cauline, with lanceolate or deltoid-acuminate blades beset with a few minute peg- or tack-shaped processes; leaves erect, mostly clustered in a subradical tuft, (6) 10-30 cm. long, with stiffly wiry petiole and rachis and (9) 13-25 (31) distant and often scattered, linear-oblong, -elhptic, lanceolate, or subfiliform, obtuse, acute, rarely retuse, flat or involute leaflets 3-23 mm. long, the terminal one sometimes continuous with the rachis, the lateral ones readily disjointing in age." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles commonly stout, stiffly erect or divergent in fruit, 1-3.3 dm. long, a little shorter to much longer than the leaves; racemes loosely 7-17 (20)-flowered, the flowers at full anthesis ascending or loosely spreading (but not nodding), the axis elongating, (3) 4-12 (15) cm. long in fruit; bracts membranous, narrowly ovate to linear- or lance-acuminate, 2-4.5 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis slender, 1-2 mm. long, in fruit erect or narrowly ascending, clavately thickened, 2-4.5 mm. long; bracteoles nearly always 2; calyx (7) 8.5-12 mm. long, strigulose-pilosulous with black or largely black hairs up to 0.45-0.9 mm. long, the oblique disc 1-1.5 mm. deep, the membranous, cylindric or subcylindric tube (5.7) 6-9.2 mm. long, 2.5-4 mm. in diameter, the subulate teeth 1.3-3 (4) mm. long, the ventral pair commonly broadest and directed away from the broad ventral sinus, the whole becoming scarious, fragile, irregularly circumscissile; petals whitish with purple keel-tip, or with banner and wing-tips also suffused with lilac-blue or purple; banner recurved through 45 degrees, oblanceolate or broadly rhombic-oblanceolate, emarginate, 16-25.5 mm. long, 6.7-10.5 mm. wide; wings 14.2-22.3 mm. long, the claws 7-11.5 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate, obtuse or obscurely emarginate, straight or slightly incurved blades 8.3-13 mm. long, (1.8) 2.5-4 mm. wide; keel 11.6-17.5 mm. long, the claws 6.3-10 mm., the half-obovate blades (5.7) 6.2-8.5 mm. long, 2.5-3.8 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 80-90 degrees (rarely less) into the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers (0.6) 0.7-0.85 (0.95) mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod erect, sessile, oblong-ellipsoid to narrowly oblong-ovoid, 1.2-2.5 cm. long, 5-8 mm. in diameter, straight or a trifle incurved, obtuse at base, contracted distally into a triangular-cuspidate, laterally compressed beak, otherwise obcompressed, with flattish ventral face keeled by the prominent, cordlike suture, and almost flat to widely and openly grooved dorsal face, the fleshy, green, glabrous valves becoming leathery or subligneous, stramineous, transversely rugulose and wrinkled lengthwise, commonly inflexed as a partial septum up to 1.4 mm. wide, but the septum sometimes vestigial or obsolete; ovules 23-30; seeds brown, chestnut-brown, or olivaceous, smooth but dull, 2.4-3.3 mm. long. The fruit persisting into winter." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Blue , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Mar , Apr , May , Jun
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish with purple keel-tip, or with banner and wing-tips also suffused with lilac-blue or purple." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: ID , OR , WA
Native Distribution: "Common and locally plentiful in north transmontane Oregon, from the Blue Mountains in Baker County west to the Deschutes River, south to the Malheur Valley, Steens Mountain, and east into Owyhee County, Idaho." (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: "Stony hilltops, rough meadows, brushy hillsides and canyon benches, in grassland, sagebrush desert, and ascending rarely into the lower edge of the xeric pine forest, usually, perhaps exclusively on basaltic bedrock, (1600) 2000—5100 feet." (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

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Additional resources

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