Family: Fabaceae
Astragalus
Citation:
L., Sp. Pl. 755 (1753).
Derivation: Greco-Latin name of the ankle-bone; also of some leguminous plant.
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: Milk-vetches, loco weeds.
Description:
Annual biennial and perennial herbs and subshrubs; leaves stipulate, paripinnate or imparipinnate, rarely unfoliolate or digitately 3-foliolate, sometimes the rhachis produced into a hard terminal spine; leaflets entire, exstipellate.
Inflorescences axillary or pseudo-terminal, racemose or spicate, occasionally umbellate, or flowers rarely solitary; flowers bracteate, pedicellate or sessile, violet or purple to white or pale-yellow; bracteoles minute or wanting; calyx cylindrical or campanulate, sometimes inflated, teeth subequal; standard erect or recurved, ovate or obovate to oblong, sometimes appendiculate, usually longer than the wings and keel, wings and keel generally with long claws; wings oblong; keel straight or upcurved, with an obtuse apex; 9 stamens united in a tube, adaxial stamen free; anthers uniform; ovary sessile or stipitate, glabrous or pubescent, few- or many-ovulate; style straight or incurved; stigma terminal, sometimes penicillate.
Pod sessile or stipitate, 2-valved, cylindrical, rarely somewhat inflated, often divided longitudinally by a septum arising from the abaxial suture; seed generally reniform, exarillate.
Distribution:
|
One of the biggest Angiospermous genera with about 2,000 species, in the Old and New World, absent from Malaysia and Australasia.
|
|
|
Biology:
No text
Key to Species:
|
1. Peduncles 3-5 cm long; pods 2-5 cm long, strongly curved; hairs on the stem and branches medifixed |
|
A. hamosus 1. |
|
1. Peduncles less than 0.5 cm long; pod 1-1.5 cm long, straight and erect; hairs on the stem and branches mainly basifixed |
|
A. sesameus 2. |
Author:
Not yet available
|