Astragalus wootonii var. wootonii |
|
---|---|
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 |
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 | |
Synonyms | A. allochrous var. playanus |
Name authority | unknown |
Web links |