Astragalus flexuosus

      
Slender Milk-Vetch

Root

Rowan's Ravine Provincial Park
01-July-2005

Note the stout, creeping root and thin stems.

Note that Budd's Flora requires "plants low, cushion-like, matted or straggling; NOT [with erect or decumbent stems] ".  In fact, the stems can be straggling to decumbent.

Flexuosus:  Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species.  

plants of dry plains and foothills; NOT [plants of moist habitats in the north and the mountains]

plants with taproots and caudex; NOT [plants with rootstalks]

stems evident, erect or decumbent, often branched and leafy; NOT [plants densely caespitose or pulvinate; leaves many, crowded; flowers often included among the leaves or barely exceeding them] (Flora of Alberta)

plants low, cushion-like, matted or straggling; NOT [with erect or decumbent stems] (Budd's Flora)

plants taller than 10 cm

stems long; NOT short

stems generally less than 5 mm thick at base; NOT 5-10 mm thick at base

stems LACKING black hairs

stems few-leafed; NOT densely leafed

leaflets 15-21; NOT [11 or less]

leaflets shorter than 2-4 (6) cm long

leaflets narrowly oblong to oblanceolate; NOT elliptic ovate

leaflets often truncate or retuse at the tip; NOT [acute at the tip, sometimes arcuate]

leaflets NOT silvery pubescent

leaflets NOT needle-like; NOT spine-tipped

flowers borne on more or less well developed peduncles; NOT borne in the crown of the plant

inflorescence elongating at maturity

flowers 5-12 mm long; NOT 12-30 mm long

calyx teeth shorter than the calyx-tube; NOT [about as long as or longer than the calyx-tube]

calyx teeth deltoid to lanceolate; NOT linear

petals blue, purple or pink or predominantly so (sometimes very pale with only flashes of deeper colour); NOT [petals mostly yellow, cream or orange, the keel sometimes tinged with blue or blue-tipped], NOT white

keel-petals less than 6 mm long; NOT longer than 6 mm

apex of keel bluntly rounded; NOT [keel-tip acuminate]

pods cylindric; NOT flattened

pods glabrous or with only white hairs; NOT [pods with at least some black hairs]

 

Astragalus: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus.

herbs; NOT shrubs

plants NOT climbing

leafy stems often present; NOT [usually absent]

leaflets more than 3

leaves pinnately divided; NOT palmately divided

terminal leaflet normal; NOT replaced by a tendril

leaflets NOT glandular-dotted

keel rounded or obtuse at the tip; NOT with a sharp point at the tip

keel NOT truncate

fruit a legume; NOT a loment, NOT segmented, NOT jointed

NOT [flowers pinkish to red or purple; calyx-lobes subulate, much longer than the tube; fruit only slightly longer than wide, with short, stout spines, 1-seeded]

NOT [inflorescence umbel-like; flowers yellow; leaflets 5, pinnately arranged (the lower pair basal and resembling stipules)]

 

Leguminosae: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family.

herbs; NOT shrubs, NOT trees

plants terrestrial or semiaquatic; NOT [plants aquatic, leaves submerged or floating]

plants NOT with colored milky juice

plants with more than one normal leaf

some or all leaves alternate; NOT [opposite, whorled, or basal]

leaves with stipules

flowers with two floral rings, and with each petal distinct from the others

calyx regular

flowers irregular in shape

corolla pea-like; NOT [with one petal spurred or sac-like]

stamens usually separate or partly so; NOT in a column

fruit a legume; NOT a 3-valved capsule