Astragalus collinus

Title

Astragalus collinus

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Astragalus collinus Douglas ex Hook.

Description

76. Astragalus collinus

Robust or sometimes quite slender, villosulous nearly throughout with fine, ascending, incurved, sinuous, or curly hairs up to 0.3-0.55 mm. long, the herbage cinereous or greenish, the leaflets commonly pubescent on both sides, sometimes thinly so or (rarely) glabrous above; stems several or numerous, decumbent, diffusely ascending, or nearly erect, 1.5-4 (5) dm. long, together forming low, well- furnished clumps, commonly slender and leafless at base, stouter upward, composed of ± 4-7 (11) developed internodes, spurred or branched at 1 or more nodes at and below the middle; stipules 2-5 (7) mm. long, the lowest early becoming papery, decurrent around ± half the stem, the median and upper ones narrower, with lanceolate or triangular-acuminate, erect or deflexed, herbaceous blades; leaves 3-9 (10.5) cm. long, shortly petioled or the uppermost subsessile, with (9) 11-21 (25) oblong-oblanceolate, narrowly obovate-cuneate, or linear- elliptic, nearly always truncate-retuse but occasionally obtuse, flat leaflets 4-20 (22) mm. long; peduncles erect or incurved-ascending, (4) 5-16 cm. long, equaling or commonly surpassing the leaf; racemes (10) 15—40 (55)-flowered, rather dense at early anthesis, the nodding flowers then retrosely imbricated, becoming looser in age, the axis (3) 4-12 (18) cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, ovate, lanceolate, or lance-acuminate, 1.5—3.5 mm. long; pedicels slender, ascending, at anthesis straight or nearly so, 0.8—2 mm. long, in fruit a trifle thickened, 1.5-2.8 mm. long; bracteoles commonly 2, rarely vestigial or 0; calyx 7-12.3 mm. long, villosulous or subtomentulose with white or some black hairs, the strongly oblique disc (0.8) 1-1.7 (2) mm. deep, the membranous, pallid, ovoid-campanulate or broadly cylindric tube 5.8-9.4 mm. long, (3.2) 3.7-5.7 mm. in diameter, straight or nearly so on the dorsal side, strongly convex on the ventral side and gibbous-saccate at base, the broadly lanceolate, triangular-subulate, or deltoid teeth (0.8) 1-2.7 (3.5) mm. long, the ventral pair broadest but either longer or shorter than the rest, the whole becoming papery, marcescent unruptured; petals cream-colored or pale lemon-yellow, the blade of the banner and the auricles of the wings and keel sometimes fleshy-thickened; banner (10.5) 12-17.2 mm. long, sigmoidally arched, the long-cuneate claw incurved proximally to conform with the calyx, the broadly oval, rhombic-ovate, or suborbicular, notched blade very abruptly and strongly folded back around the margins and 5-8.6 mm. wide, the blade exceptionally better developed and rhombic-oblanceolate, then recurved through ±50°; wings (10.5) 11-15.7 mm. long, the claws (5.3) 6-8.2 mm., the obovate or broadly oblanceolate, obtuse or subemarginate, nearly straight blades (5.1) 5.4-9 mm. long, 2.1-3.3 mm. wide; keel 8.7-13.2 mm. long, the claws (5.3) 6-8.8 mm., the obtusely triangular blades (3.7) 4-5.5 mm. long, 2.2-3.5 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through ± 90° to the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers (0.4) 0.5-0.75 (0.9) mm. long; pod pendulous, stipitate, the straight, slender stipe 5-15 mm. long, the body Unear- or narrowly lance-oblong in profile, or in one var. obliquely ovate-oblong to lunate-oblong, straight or gently incurved, 0.7-2.5 cm. long, 2.3—4.2 mm. in diameter, cuneate at both ends, shortly cuspidate at apex, strongly compressed, bicarinate by the thickened, salient sutures, the lateral faces low-convex toward the dorsal suture, the somewhat fleshy, greenish valves becoming stramineous, leathery, impressed-reticulate, not inflexed; ovules 7-18; seeds (seldom seen) brown or olivaceous, smooth or pitted, dull ± 2.5 mm. long.