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Habit Plants winter-annual or biennial, coarse, (10–)15–50 cm, strigulose; from superficial root-crown.
Stems

decumbent to incurved-ascending or almost prostrate, strigulose.

Leaves

(2–)4–10(12) cm;

stipules usually distinct, very rarely connate at proximal nodes, (1.5–)2.5–7(–10) mm, submembranous becoming papery;

leaflets (7–)11–19[–23], blades narrowly oblanceolate, linear-oblong, or oblong-obovate, 5–20 mm, apex retuse-truncate or obtuse, often callous-apiculate, surfaces strigulose abaxially, strigulose or glabrous adaxially.

Racemes

[2 or](3–)5–10(–15)-flowered, flowers ascending to spreading or declined;

axis (0.5–)1–4(–5) cm in fruit;

bracts 1–3.2 mm;

bracteoles 2.

Peduncles

incurved-ascending, (0.5–)1.5–5.5(–7) cm.

Pedicels

1–3.5 mm.

Flowers

4.6–7.5 mm;

calyx campanulate or turbinate-campanulate, 4.3–6.4 mm, strigulose or villosulous, tube 2.1–2.9(–3.2) mm, lobes lanceolate-subulate, 2–3.5 mm;

corolla whitish, sometimes tinged pink or lavender, or pale to vivid reddish lilac;

banner recurved through 50°;

keel (4.1–)4.4–6.4 mm, apex usually broad and blunt, rarely triangular and subacute, sometimes obscurely beaklike.

Legumes

spreading or declined (usually humistrate), green or purplish-tinged, rarely lightly mottled, becoming stramineous, straight or slightly incurved, broadly and subsymmetrically, or somewhat obliquely, ovoid, ovoid-ellipsoid, ellipsoid, or subglobose, bladdery-inflated, (10–)15–37(–43) × (8–)12–20 mm, beak short and obscure, not well differentiated from body, thin becoming papery, lustrous, sparsely strigulose, hairs straight, [subvillosulous, or glabrate].

Seeds

(10–)13–21.

2n

= 22.

Astragalus wootonii var. wootonii

Phenology Flowering Mar–Jul.
Habitat Desert- and mesquite-grasslands, in pinyon-juniper communities.
Elevation 600–2300 m. (2000–7500 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; CO; NM; TX; Mexico (Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora)
Discussion

Variety wootonii occurs from extreme eastern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, through most of Arizona and the western half of New Mexico to extreme southern Colorado and trans-Pecos Texas, southward into Mexico.

The plants contain the indolizidine alkaloid swainsonine, and are potentially poisonous to livestock (L. F. James and S. L. Welsh 1992).

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

Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Inflati > Astragalus wootonii
Synonyms A. allochrous var. playanus
Name authority unknown
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