Herbs perennial, low, caulescent; caudex subterranean. Hairs basifixed. Stems few or several to many. Stipules connate or distinct. Leaves odd-pinnate, petiolate to subsessile; leaflets 7–13(or 15). Racemes loosely flowered or rather densely flowered and subumbellate, flowers spread­ing. Calyx tubes campanulate. Corollas whitish or lilac-tinged, banner recurved through 50–90°, keel apex blunt or deltate. Legumes deciduous, sessile, ascending (humistrate) or spreading, ovoid to lanceoloid-ovoid, bladdery-inflated or ± dorsiventrally compressed, subunilocular to bilocular. Seeds 16–28.

Distribution

California.

Discussion

Species 2 (2 in the flora).

Section Monoenses, as defined here, consists of two species of the Sierra Nevada in Mono, eastern Fresno, and western Inyo counties. Other species sometimes placed in this section are Astragalus perianus (whose alliance is apparently with A. serpens in central Utah) and A. pulsiferae (which has been removed to sect. Pulsiferani, with distribution in the northern Sierra Nevada, adjacent Nevada, and disjunct Washington).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Astragalus monoensis, Astragalus ravenii