Astragalus Grayi

Title

Astragalus Grayi

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Astragalus grayi Parry

Description

113. Astragalus Grayi

Usually robust and in the context of the section relatively leafy, with a thick, heavy taproot and shortly forking caudex at or just below soil-level, thinly strigulose throughout or nearly so with fine, sometimes flattened, appressed and narrowly ascending hairs up to 0.2-0.6 mm. long, the stems and leathery herbage dark yellowish-green, the leaflets glabrous or less often strigulose above; stems several or numerous, erect and ascending in clumps, (1.5) 2—3.5 dm. long, simple, or strictly branching at or below the middle; stipules firm, 2.5—10 mm. long, dimorphic, those at the leafless lower nodes amplexicaul and connate into a papery, bidentate sheath sometimes ruptured by the stem’s expansion, the upper ones becoming more nearly herbaceous and progressively less connate upward, the uppermost deltoid- acuminate or caudate, free to the base or nearly so, the blades mostly squarrose, leaves (2.5) 4-10 cm. long, the upper ones subsessile, with stiff, grooved rachis and (1) 2—5 pairs of linear-oblong or oblanceolate, obtuse or subacute, conspicuously veined, flat but marginally elevated leaflets 1.5—5 (or in some early leaves only 0.6-1.5) cm. long, all or mostly contracted at base into a short, pallid pseu- dopetiolule but not jointed, the terminal one similar to but often longer than the last pair, tapering into and continuous with the rachis; peduncles erect, strict, 3—10 cm. long; racemes (5) 9—27-flowered, rather dense, the flowers ascending, the axis little elongating, (1) 1.5—7 cm. long in fruit; bracts firm, lanceolate, 2—7 mm. long, pedicels ascending, straight, at anthesis 0.7—2 mm., in fruit a little thickened, 1-3.5 mm. long; bracteoles commonly 2; calyx 6.5-10.3 mm, long, thinly to quite densely strigulose with white, rarely some or all black hairs, the slightly oblique disc 1-1.8 (2) mm. deep, the deeply campanulate to subcylindric tube 5.2-8 mm. long, 2.9-4.2 mm. in diameter, the lance-subulate teeth 1.2-2.5 mm. long, the ventral pair sometimes shorter, deltoid, the whole becoming scarious, investing the lower half of the pod; petals cream-colored, usually marcescent; banner recurved through ± 40°, (14.5) 15-22.5 mm. long, roughly rhombic in outline, the long- cuneate claw expanded upward into an ovate, emarginate blade (6.2) 7-12 mm. wide; wings (14.4) 15-19.2 mm. long, the claws 7-8.7 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate, obtuse, nearly straight blades 8.2-12 mm. long, 2.2-3.2 mm. wide; keel (11.5) 12.7-15.2 mm. long, the claws (6.3) 7.3-8.7 mm., the half-obovate blades 5.8-7.3 mm. long, 2.7-3.2 mm. wide; anthers 0.7-0.85 mm. long; pod erect or ascending at a narrow angle, sessile, narrowly oblong or oblong-elliptic in profile, straight or nearly so, 9-18 mm. long, 2.7-3.5 mm. in diameter, obtuse at base, abruptly contracted and cuspidate at apex, terete or a trifle laterally compressed, carinate by the thickened, salient, cordlike ventral suture, the green, fleshy, glabrous or rarely strigulose valves becoming stiffly leathery, brownish-stramineous, coarsely reticulate, not inflexed; ovules (14) 16-21 (23); seeds olivaceous, minutely pitted, dull, 3-3.5 mm. long.—Collections: 11 (iv); representative: C. L. Porter 5389, 5406 (CAS, NY, RM, TEX); E. Nelson 4866 (NY); Ripley & Barneby 8006 (CAS, NY, RSA, UTC); Barneby 13,217 (CAS, NY, RSA).