Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems several or numerous, erect and ascending in bushy clumps, rarely diffuse or pendulous from cliff- ledges, 3-7 dm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules (0.5) 1-4.5 mm. long, the lowest early becoming papery, at least in vernation fully amplexicaul and connate into a subentire or bidentate sheath (commonly ruptured by expansion of the stem and then appearing as a low, imperfectly amplexicaul collar), the median and upper ones small, inconspicuous, united by a stipular line or only semiamplexicaul, with erect, triangular or subulate, herbaceous blades; leaves commonly divaricate and incurved, 4-10 (13) cm. long, with slender, tapering rachis and (5) 7-15 (17) distant, linear or linear-filiform, acute, subobtuse, involute, or (in some lower leaves) linear-oblanceolate and retuse, flat leaflets 2-22 mm. long, those of the upper leaves usually reduced in size, number, or both, and the terminal one either jointed like the lateral or confluent with the rachis." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles slender, erect or incurved-ascending, 5-15 (22) cm. long; racemes loosely (3) 4-14 (18)- flowered, the flowers early spreading and then declined, the axis 1-8.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, ovate or subulate, 0.8-1.5 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis ascending, straight, (1.2) 1.5-2 mm. long, in fruit ascending or arched outward, 1.5-3.5 mm. long; bracteoles 0, rarely a minute scale; calyx 4-6.7 mm. long, minutely strigulose with black or mixed black and white hairs, the subsymmetric disc 0.7-1.5 mm. deep, the tube 3.2-5.8 mm. long, the deltoid or broadly triangular-subulate teeth 0.5-1 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals white, creamy-white, or purplish; banner recurved through about 40 degrees, 12.5-15.5 mm. long, 5-7.5 mm. wide; wings 10.2-14 mm. long, the claws 3.5-6.2 mm., the obovate or oblanceolate, obtuse, slightly incurved blades 7-9.3 mm long, 2-3 mm. wide; keel 8-11 mm. long, the claws 4.1-6 mm., the half- obovate, -obcordate, or lunately elliptic blades 4.3-5.2 mm. long, 2.3-2.9 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 95-100 degrees to the bluntly deltoid or triangular, often slightly porrect apex; anthers 0.45-0.6 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod loosely pendulous, stipitate, the filiform, purplish, sometimes puberulent stipe about twice as long as the calyx, the body obliquely obovoid, half-obovoid or -ellipsoid, bladdery-inflated, (1.6) 2-4.8 cm. long, (5) 6-16 (when pressed, apparently up to 22) mm. in diameter, commonly broadest above the middle, contracted distally into an oblique, deltoid or deltoid-apiculate beak, the filiform, often purplish ventral suture varying from strongly convex to straight or a trifle concave in profile, the papery-membranous, subdiaphanous, delicately reticulate, glabrous valves at first pale green, sometimes faintly mottled, becoming stramineous or pearly-white and lustrous, not inflexed; ovules 10-20; seeds brown, sometimes purple-speckled or -mottled, smooth but scarcely lustrous, 2.9-3.5 (4) mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals white, creamy-white, or purplish." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: ID , OR , WA
Native Distribution: As given for the varieties. (bibref: 1813).
Native Habitat: As given for the varieties. (bibref: 1813).

Bibliography

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

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Additional resources

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