Astragalus saurinus

Title

Astragalus saurinus

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Astragalus saurinus Barneby

Description

117. Astragalus saurinus

Robust, sparsely leafy and somewhat junceous, with a stout, woody root and closely forking caudex or knotty root-crown just below soil-level, strigulose nearly throughout with fine, straight, appressed, together with a few ascending or spreading (sometimes partly black) hairs up to 0.5—0.8 mm. long, the stems and herbage yellowish-green or the growing tips cinereous, the leaflets pubescent above; stems several or very numerous, erect and stiffly ascending in well-furnished clumps, (1.5) 2-3 dm. long, leafless at base, spurred or slenderly branched at 1-3 nodes preceding the first peduncle, the branches strictly ascending; stipules dimorphic, those at the lowest, leafless, congested nodes 2.5—7 mm. long, connate into a pallid, papery-scarious, several-nerved, truncate or shortly bidentate sheath, the median and upper ones smaller, 1.2-5 mm. long, herbaceous with scarious margins, becoming papery, triangular-ovate or lanceolate, either semiamplexicaul or joined opposite the petiole by a low collar or stipular line; leaves (2.5) 3-9 cm. long, the lower ones with 1-4 distant pairs of linear, linear-oblanceolate, or filiform, obtuse or subacute, involute leaflets 1—2.5 cm. long, either confluent with the rachis or obscurely pseudopetiolulate, the uppermost ones (or sometimes nearly all) reduced to the naked rachis, the terminal leaflet always confluent longer than the last pair of lateral ones; peduncles stout, erect, 7—17 cm. long; racemes loosely but shortly (4) 6—14-flowered, the flowers at first ascending but early declined, the axis little elongating, (1) 2—6 cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous becoming papery, triangular-ovate or broadly lanceolate, 1.2-2 mm. long; pedicels 1.5-2.5 mm. long, at anthesis ascending or a trifle arched outward, in fruit thickened, arcuate-recurved, but scarcely longer; bracteoles 1-2, minute; calyx (6.4) 7-9.6 mm. long, densely and rather loosely strigulose with white commonly mixed with black or fuscous hairs, the somewhat oblique disc 1.2-1.6 mm. deep, the campanulate, purplish tube 5.6-6.7 mm. long, 2.8-5.2 mm. in diameter, the broadly subulate to triangular-subulate teeth (0.9) 1.2-3.6 mm. long, the ventral pair often longest and widest, the whole becoming papery-scarious, ruptured or not, marcescent; petals bicolored, bright pink-purple (drying bluish) with white wing-tips; banner recurved through ± 50° (or further in withering), broadly rhombic-oblanceolate or elongately rhombic-obovate, deeply notched, 18-22 mm. long, 9-13 mm. wide; wings 14.5-20 mm. long, the claws 5.9-8.9 mm., the linear-oblong, or oblanceolate, obtuse, nearly straight blades 9.8-14 mm. long, 2.7-4 mm. wide; keel 12-16 mm. long, the claws 6-8.3 mm., the lunately half-elliptic blades 6.2-8.3 mm. long, 2.9—4.2 mm. wide, incurved through 85-90° to the obtuse apex; anthers (0.6) 0.65-0.9 (1) mm. long; pod deflexed, sessile or contracted at base into an obscure, stipelike neck up to 1 mm. long and as broad, Unear-oblong or narrowly oblanceolate in profile, straight or very slightly incurved, (1.5) 2-3.4 cm. long, 4.4-6 mm. in diameter, cuneately contracted or tapering at base, abruptly contracted distally and shortly cuspidate (the cusp 0.5-1 mm. long), strongly compressed laterally, bicarinate by the prominent sutures, the faces low-convex, the green, thinly fleshy, densely to quite thinly strigulose or glabrescent valves becoming stiffly papery, stramineous, prominently reticulate, not inflexed; ovules 19-29; seeds greenish or greenish-brown, commonly red- or purple-spotted, smooth or sparsely pitted, scarcely lustrous, 3.2-4 mm. long.—Collections: 10 (ii); representative: Wolf & Deaver 5005 (CAS, DS, TEX, US); Ripley & Barneby 12,714 (CAS, GH, NY, POM, UTC, US), 12,716 (CAS, K, NY, RM, UTC, WS).