Astragalus aridus A. Gray
Family: Fabaceae
Annual Desert Milk-Vetch,  more...
Astragalus aridus image
©Neal Kramer  

Plant: Annual, silvery silky-canescent; stem decumbent or ascending, 3-30 cm

Leaves: generally compound, alternate, stipuled, 2-9 cm, odd-1-pinnate; leaflets 7-17, 4-16 mm, ± oblong or oblanceolate, tips acute to notched

INFLORESCENCE: raceme, axillary, flowers 3-9, ascending

Flowers: bilateral; calyx 5-lobed; petals whitish, pink-tinged, or ± tannish pink, banner outside wings in bud 3.3-6.5 mm, recurved ± 40 degrees, keel 3.5-5 mm; 9 filaments fused, 1 free; ovary (and fruit) generally sessile, style slender, stigma minute

Fruit: legume, ascending, 10-17 mm, 4-7 mm wide, ± half-elliptic in side view, round in X -section, grayish, thickly papery; hairs appressed; beak triangular, strongly compressed side-to-side; chamber 1; Seeds 2-many, smooth, compressed, ± notched at attachment scar

Misc: Sandy places; < 350 m.; Feb-Apr

Astragalus aridus image
©Neal Kramer  
Astragalus aridus image
©Neal Kramer  
Astragalus aridus image
©Neal Kramer