Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Stems usually few, commonly 4-6, sometimes solitary, rarely up to 37, erect, ascending, or exceptionally diffuse or prostrate, (1) 1.5-8 dm." (bibref: 1813).
Leaf: "Stipules more or less dimorphic, those at the buried and lower emersed nodes papery-scarious, pallid or purplish-brown, often several- nerved, (1) 2-7 mm. long, amplexicaul and connate into a campanulate sheath, the median and upper ones nearly always smaller, herbaceous, ovate, triangular, or deltoid, commonly only semiamplexicaul, rarely briefly united at base; leaves 2-11 cm. long, the leaflets of the upper leaves, sometimes of all, greatly reduced, wanting, or decurrent on the rachis, when present up to 6 pairs, then distant, linear, linear-oblong, or -oblanceolate, involute or rarely flat, up to 25 (33) mm. long, mostly much shorter." (bibref: 1813).
Flower: "Peduncles erect, incurved-ascending, or divaricate, (1) 3-14 cm. long, either longer or shorter than the leaf; racemes very loosely or remotely (1) 3-25-flowered, the flowers early spreading, at length declined and often irregularly secund, the axis (0.5) 2-18 (23) cm. long in fruit; bracts thinly herbaceous becoming papery, ovate or lanceolate, 0.5-2.3 mm. long, greenish, pallid, or purple-tinged; pedicels slender or subfiliform, at anthesis ascending at a wide angle or arched outward, 1-4.5 mm. long, in fruit straight and ascending, straight and divaricate, geniculate at base and refracted, or tortuous, 2-8 mm. long, tardily disjointing with the fruit; bracteoles 0-2, minute when present; calyx 4-6.3 mm. long, strigulose with black, white, or mixed hairs, the symmetric or slightly oblique disc 0.6-1 (1.4) mm. deep, the campanulate tube 3.4-5.4 mm. long, rounded or obliquely turbinate at base, sometimes a trifle constricted at the mouth and then obscurely urceolate, the broadly subulate, triangular, or deltoid, mostly obtuse teeth 0.5-1.4 mm. long, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals ochroleucous, ochroleucous veined or tinged with dull purple, sometimes bright rose-purple, all strongly incurved through at least a right angle, usually not strongly graduated, the wings (detached) often a trifle longer than the banner but arched in a longer and wider arc and so, in situ, appearing shorter; banner (6.6) 7-11.2 mm. long, the shortly cuneate claw abruptly expanded into a broadly ovate, rhombic- ovate, suborbicular, or inversely reniform, shallowly and openly notched or entire blade 5-8.2 mm. wide; wings (7) 7.7-12.6 mm. long, the claws (3) 3.5-5.6 mm., the lunately oblong, oblong-oblanceolate, or obliquely obovate, obtuse, often erose, or sometimes subemarginate blades 3.5-7 mm. long, (1.6) 2-3 mm. wide, their inner margins commonly infolded and once or more undulately notched near the middle; keel (6.2) 6.5-9.4 mm. long, the claws (3) 3.2-5.4 mm., the lunately triangular, or lunately half-circular blades 3.5-6.1 mm. long, 2.2-3.6 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 100-125 degrees to the triangular or sometimes triangular- acuminate, subacute or obtuse, often obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.55-0.75 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).
Fruit: "Pod essentially pendulous, but spreading vertically from divaricate peduncles and then (in pressed material) apparently horizontal, sessile but sometimes basally attenuate and then appearing very shortly and obscurely stipitate, the body linear, linear-oblong, linear-acuminate, or sometimes attenuate downward from near the apex and then oblanceolate in profile, straight or a trifle arched either way, 1.3-5 cm. long, 2.3-4 mm. in diameter, laterally compressed, bicarinate by the slender sutures, the faces flat when young becoming distended and low-convex at maturity, the thin, pale green, purplish, or purple-mottled, strigulose valves becoming papery, stramineous, delicately cross-reticulate, not inflexed; dehiscence apical and downward through both sutures, the valves ultimately separating to the base and coiling outward; ovules (11) 13-26; seeds brown or olivaceous, sometimes purple-speckled, smooth and lustrous, or more or less pitted or rugulose and then either dull or shining, 1.8-4.3 mm. long." (bibref: 1813).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: Pink , Yellow , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul , Aug
Bloom Notes: "Petals ochroleucous, ochroleucous veined or tinged with dull purple, sometimes bright rose-purple." (bibref: 1813).

Distribution

USA: CO , ID , MT , NV , UT , WY
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 convallarius in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Astragalus convallarius in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Astragalus convallarius