Astragalus Parryi

Low, loosely tufted, caulescent, the stems and herbage hirsute with fine, spreading and often contorted, basifixed hairs up to 1—2 mm. long, canescent or greenish, the leaflets often glabrescent above; stems several, decumbent, simple, 3-25 cm. long, arising from the superficial root-crown or, in old plants, from a shortly forking caudex; stipules thinly herbaceous becoming papery-membranous, ovate-acuminate or lanceolate, 5-10 mm. long, semiamplexicaul-decurrent; leaves (2) 4-14 cm. long, shortly petioled, with (9) 15-27 variably shaped leaflets 4-15 mm. long, those of the shorter, primary leaves commonly small, broadly ovate or obcordate those of the upper leaves larger, obovate to broadly oblanceolate or elliptic, obtuse or rarely acute; peduncles slender, 2-5.5 cm. long, often less than ½ as long as the subtending leaf, incurved-ascending at anthesis, prostrate in fruit; racemes shortly but loosely 4-9-flowered, the flowers loosely ascending, the axis little elongating, 1-2.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts lance-acuminate, 3.5-9 mm. long; pedicels ascending, at anthesis slender, ± 2 mm., in fruit thickened, 2.5-4 mm. long; bracteoles 0-2; calyx 9-12 mm. long, hirsute with white or mixed black and white hairs over 1 mm. long, the oblique disc 0.5-1.2 mm. deep, the submembranous, broadly campanulate or more rarely subcylindric tube 5-7 mm. long, 3-4.8 mm. in diameter, the narrowly lanceolate teeth ± 4-5 mm. long; petals white, or white with pink veins and keel-tip, rarely roseate throughout; banner recurved through ± 45°, 15-22 mm. long, the narrowly cuneate claw expanded into an ovate blade 8.2-12 mm. wide; wings 14-18 mm. long, the claws 7-8.2 mm., the obliquely oblanceolate or obovate, obtuse or emarginate blades 9.8—12.1 mm. long, 3-5 mm. wide; keel 12.4-16.2 mm. long, the claws 6.5-8.1 mm , the lunate blades 6.9—9.4 mm. long, 2.4—3.5 mm. wide, incurved through ± 45° to the deltoid, sometimes obscurely porrect apex; anthers 0.7-0.85 mm. long; pod loosely ascending or spreading (humistrate), lunately lanceolate in profile, incurved through 1/5-½, or rarely coiled into nearly a full circle, strongly obcompressed and sulcate along both sutures in the lower ½-?, thence passing upward into an acuminate, often long-acuminate, laterally compressed beak, the sutures thickened and prominent even though depressed, subcontiguous within the cavity, the dorsal one commonly undulate, the fleshy, green valves becoming brownish, stiffly leathery or subligneous, rugulose-reticulate, densely hirsutulous with white hairs, not inflexed; dehiscence apical, after falling; seeds olive-brown or castaneous, smooth, 2.2-2.5 mm. long.—Collections: 40 (ix); representative: C. L. Porter 3111, 3209 (RM, WTU); Ripley & Barneby 7226 (CAS, RSA), 7686 (CAS, GH, NY, RSA, UTC), 10,414 (RSA); Rydberg & Vreeland 5968 (NY, WS).