Astragalus guatemalensis

Perennial, with a taproot and shallowly buried (perhaps sometimes superficial) root-crown, thinly strigulose or hirsutulous, the herbage green or sometimes cinereous in youth, the leaflets glabrous above, paler and variably hairy beneath; stems diffuse, decumbent, prostrate and trailing, or straggling up through supporting bushes, 0.7-15 (24) dm. long, sometimes flowering when simple and only 0.7-2 dm. long but more commonly freely branched upward and almost indefinitely elongating through a long flowering season; stipules submembranous, the lower ones becoming papery-scarious, 1.5-9 mm. long, usually dimorphic, the lowest of the main stems and of the branches (sometimes all) amplexicaul and connate through half their length or more into a bidentate sheath, the sheath sometimes ruptured in age, the upper ones mostly connate at base only, or semi-amplexicaul and free, with lanceolate to narrowly lance-acuminate or -caudate, erect or deflexed blades; leaves (1.5) 3-12 cm. long, subsessile or very shortly petioled, with (11) 17-37 opposite or scattered, oblong-elliptic, broadly oblanceolate, oval, ovate, or obovate, obtuse, truncate-emarginate, or retuse (sometimes also mucronulate), rarely elliptic and subacute, flat, thin-textured leaflets (2) 3-19 mm. long; peduncles slender, incurved-ascending, 3—15 (19) cm. long, nearly as long or longer than the leaf; racemes shortly 6—20 (30)-flowered, or those of some slender lateral branches only 2—5-flowered, the flowers early horizontal and declined in age, the axis little elongating, (0.5) 1-3.5 (5) cm. long in fruit; bracts submembranous, ovate-triangular, lanceolate, or linear-acuminate, often reflexed in age; pedicels at anthesis slender, ascending, 0.5—1.5 mm. long, early arched outward, in fruit thickened, persistent, 0.9—2.5 mm. long; bracteoles usually 0, rarely 2, minute; calyx variably pubescent with black, fuscous, more rarely white hairs, 3.2—7.8 mm. long, the somewhat oblique disc 0.7—1.1 mm. deep, the campanulate tube 2.6-4 mm. long, 2.2-3.5 mm. in diameter, the narrowly lance- subulate, subulate, triangular, or broadly deltoid teeth 0.6—4 mm. long; petals usually pinkish- or bluish-purple, rarely yellowish; banner recurved through 40— 45°, rhombic-elliptic, obovate-spatulate, or ovate-cuneate, shallowly notched or emarginate, (8.5) 9-12 mm. long, 4.5-7 mm. wide; wings (8) 8.6-10.5 mm. long, the claws 3.2-4.6 mm., the narrowly oblong-oblanceolate, narrowly obovate, or linear-oblong, obtuse or emarginate, nearly straight blades 6.2—8 mm. long, 1.6—2.8 mm. wide; keel 6.8—8.3 mm. long, the claws (3) 3.5—4.6 mm., the half-obovate blades 3.6-4.6 mm. long, 2.1-2.7 mm. wide, abruptly incurved through 90-110° to the blunt-deltoid apex; anthers 0.4-0.55 mm. long; pod pendulous, stipitate, the stipe 1—5 mm. long, the body ellipsoid or oblong ellipsoid, tumescent or a trifle inflated, 12-21 mm. long, (4) 5-7 (8) mm. in diameter, straight or a trifle arched downward, subtruncate to cuneate at both ends, cuspidate at apex, dorsiventrally compressed, obtusely carinate ventrally by the prominent suture, openly and shallowly sulcate dorsally, the thin, green, glabrous or strigulose valves becoming papery, stramineous or ultimately almost black, finely cross-reticulate, inflexed as a partial or nearly complete septum 0.5—1.5 mm. wide; dehiscence apical and downward through the length of the dorsal suture and the septum, the valves folding outward in age; ovules 10-18 (19); seeds chestnut- or mahogany-brown, smooth but scarcely lustrous, 1.7-2.5 mm. long.