Montana Field Guide

Perennial from a short-branched caudex. Herbage glabrate to strigose. Stems ascending, 5–30 cm. Leaves with 11 to 19 elliptic leaflets, 5–20 mm long with rounded to truncate tips; stipules ovate, 2–5 mm long, membranous, mostly distinct. Inflorescence ca. as long as the leaves, dense with 4 to 15 ascending flowers. Flowers magenta with yellowish wings; calyx black-strigose; sepals ca. 1 mm long; banner 15–19 mm long, reflexed; keel 9–13 mm long. Legume erect, narrowly elliptic, curved, compressed perpendicular to the septum, white-strigillose, 2–3 cm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Similar to Astragalus lentiginosus, from which it differs in having larger, conspicuous stipules and abruptly apiculate fruits that nearly lack a laterally compressed triangular beak. Also, the flowers of most A. lentiginosus in Montana are cream, while those of A. cibarius are more often purple.

Grows in sagebrush steppe in dry soil.

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus appositus, Bombus auricomus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus borealis, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus huntii, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus griseocollis, and Bombus insularis (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Wilson et al. 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).