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Habit Herbs perennial, caulescent; caudex subterranean.
Stems

single or few to many.

Leaves

odd-pinnate, subsessile to petiolate;

leaflets (3–)7–25(–31), sometimes decurrent.

Racemes

loosely flowered, flowers ascending, spreading, or declined.

Corollas

purple to pink or pink-purple, purplish, ochroleucous, yellowish, or whitish, banner recurved through 45–90°, keel apex obtuse or acute-triangular.

Calyx

tubes shallowly to deeply campanulate or subcylindric.

Legumes

persistent, sessile or subsessile to stipitate, spreading to declined, deflexed, or pendulous, oblong, ellipsoid, subglobose, or cylindroid, sometimes bladdery-inflated, 3-sided, subterete, or compression lateral or dorsiventral, unilocular.

Seeds

4–36.

Hairs

basifixed.

Stipules

connate at proximal nodes, distinct ± distally.

Astragalus sect. Scytocarpi

Distribution
w North America; Mexico; c North America
Discussion

Species 14 (13 in the flora).

In the flora area, sect. Scytocarpi consists of 13 species in six subsections found on the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Colorado Basin, southward through Arizona, New Mexico, trans-Pecos Texas, and northeastern Mexico; one other subsection is found only in northeastern Mexico.

The subsections are: subsect. Scytocarpi (A. Gray) Barneby (Astragalus flexuosus, A. fucatus, A. pictiformis, A. proximus, and A. subcinereus); subsect. Wingatani Barneby (A. cliffordii and A. wingatanus); subsect. Microlobi (A. Gray) Barneby (A. gracilis); subsect. Microcymbi S. L. Welsh (A. microcymbus); subsect. Halliani (Rydberg) Barneby (A. castetteri, A. hallii, and A. puniceus); subsect. Shevockiani Barneby (A. shevockii); and subsect. Antonini Barneby (A. coriaceus Hemsley), which is confined to Mexico.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus
Subordinate taxa
Name authority A. Gray: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 6: 222. (1864)
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