毛叶黄耆 mao ye huang qi

Astragalus inderiensis Claus; A. lasiophyllus Ledebour.

Plants 5-10 cm tall, acaulescent to shortly caulescent, caespitose. Stems, if present, up to 5 cm, densely covered with ± medifixed, appressed to subappressed, white hairs up to 1 mm. Leaves 2.5-8 cm; stipules 3-5 mm, mostly ± appressed hairy; petiole 1-3 cm, like rachis rather densely covered with appressed to partly ascending, mostly ± medifixed hairs; leaf­lets in 4-7 pairs, 4-8 × 1-3 mm, adaxially glabrous or with scat­tered hairs along margins, abaxially densely to rather densely covered with subappressed to spreading hairs. Racemes 2-5-flowered; peduncle 2-6 cm, with appressed to ascending hairs; bracts ca. 1.5 mm, predominantly white hairy. Calyx 13-16 mm, rather densely covered with symmetrically or asymmetri­cally bifurcate, ± subappressed, black (predominantly at dorsal side) and white (predominantly at ventral side) hairs up to 0.5 mm; teeth 2-2.5 mm. Petals pale lilac; standard narrowly obo­vate, 23-28 × ca. 8 mm, in middle slightly constricted, apex slightly emarginate; wings 22-27 mm; keel 19-25 mm. Leg­umes subsessile, inflated ovoid, 18-24 mm, 10-12 mm in diam. with a curved beak ca. 2 mm; valves thin, sparsely cov­ered with strongly asymmetrically bifurcate to subbasifixed, spreading, white hairs up to 2 mm.

Artemisia steppes, on saline, rarely sandy, soil. Xinjiang [Kazakh­stan, Uzbekistan].