Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Short-lived perennial herb (often flowering in the first year), 15-40 cm tall, from a caudex; stems several, branched, ascending to prostrate, glabrous or silvery-strigose with basifixed pubescence.
Leaves: Alternate and pinnately compound, 1-15 cm long, with 7-25 leaflets per leaf; leaflets linear to widely ovate, 2-23 mm long and 1-13 mm wide, with entire margins, pubescent to glabrous on one or both sides; stipules discinct, 1-7 mm long or more.
Flowers: Pink, purple, white, or cream-colored, in terminal racemes 1-18 cm long, with the flowers pointing upward or downward at maturity; flowers 1-2 cm long, with pea-flower morphology (papilionaceous), with a wide upper petal called the banner, two smaller lateral petals called the wings, and a boat-shaped lower petal called the keel which contains the style and stamens. Petals pink-purple, cream-colored, whitish, or variously suffused with pink or purple; sepals 5, strigose, united into a tube 3-9 mm long, topped with 5 narrow teeth, 6-25 mm long.
Fruits: Pods ascending (pointing upward) to declined (pointing downward), variable in shape: inflated and ovoid or not inflated and oblong, 12-26 mm long and 3-20 mm wide, topped with a triangular beak, strigose or glabrous, mottled or not, leathery to membraneou
Ecology: Found in a variety of xeric upland communities, from 200-7,000 ft (61-2134 m); flowers February-June.
Distribution: Western N. Amer., from B.C., CAN, WA and MT, south to CA, AZ, NM, and MEX.
Notes: Astragalus is an exceptionally large genus and it is wise to make a good collection with flowers and mature seed pods-- especially seed pods-- for identification. A. lentiginosus is identified by this combination of traits: short lived perennial with ascending to decumbent stems; stems and leaves can be hairy or glabrous, but the hairs are never particularly dense; pinnately compound leaves with 7-25 leaflets and distinct (not fused) stipules; seed pods of various shapes but always bilocular (cut it in half cross-wise and there are 2 chambers), and without a stipe (stalk at the base of the pod but above where the calyx attached) or only a short stipe, to 1 mm long; and flowers 8-21 mm long, which can be white, cream, pink, or purple. There are over 50 varieties of A. lentiginosus, which is why the species description is a bit vague. Var. diphysus is a variety commonly found throughout central and northern Arizona and New Mexico (Allred calls it var. albiflorus); it has usually pink-purple, relatively large flowers, with the keel petal 11-15 mm long; and strongly inflated, ovoid seed pods with a triangular beak at the tip; the pod color can be green-, red-, or purple-tinged, or brightly mottled.
Ethnobotany: The Zuni people eat the pods of the diphysus variety fresh, boiled, or salted. They are also dried and stored for winter use
Etymology: Astragalus comes from the Greek astragalos, ankle bone, an early name applied to some plants in this family because of the shape of the seeds; lentiginosus means freckled or spotted, alluding to the often mottled seed pods.
Editor: SBuckley 2010, AHazelton 2017
