Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Annual, generally slender and branching, minutely grayish strigose stems, prostrate to erect, 3-30 cm.

Leaves: Pinnate leaves 0.8-7.5 cm, leaflets 9-17, 2-14 mm each, linear to oblanceolate, tips notched.

Flowers: Inflorescence head-like, flowers 5-30, less than 9 mm, erect or ascending.

Fruits: Ascending, included in calyx, 2-4 mm, 2 mm wide, spheric, 2 lobed in cross-section; minutely strigose, rarely glabrous, coarsely wrinkled, drying stiffly papery.

Ecology: Found on open sites, gravelly to sandy soils from 1,000-2,500 ft (305-762 m); flowers February-April.

Notes: An inconspicuous plant, differentiated from all other Astragalus spp. by the hard sharp transverse ridges of the small pods.

Ethnobotany: Astragalus spp. used medicinally for chest cough, colds.

Etymology: Astragalus is from Greek astragalos meaning ankle bone and is an early name applied to the genus because of the shape of the seeds, didymocarpus means with fruit in pairs.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010