ASTRAGALUS CRETICUS

Family:- LEGUMINOSAE/Subgen. TRAGACANTHA

Common Name:- None

Synonyms:- Astracantha cretica

Meaning:- Astragalus (Gr) Ankle-bone, (a plant with knotted roots).

Creticus (L) From Crete.

General description:- A perennial shrub with a low-habit, hummock-shaped and

with many branches.

Leaves:- Ending in a spine 20-50mm long, with 6-7 pairs 5-12 x 0·5-2 mm, linear-

lanceolate; stipules glabrous.

Flowers:- Yellow 10-12mm, and arranged in pairs in axils of leaves; bracts boat-

shaped like the prow of a canoe (navicular), lanceolate; bracteoles absent. Calyx 6-

10 mm, the teeth slightly shorter than or almost as long as tube. Standard 10-15

mm, the limb oblong, sometimes slightly constricted in the middle, with rounded

auricles at base.

Fruit:- Legume c. 5 mm, ovoid-ellipsoid, covered with long, shaggy hairs. (villous).

Key features:-

1) Standard with rounded auricles at base of limb.

2) Terminal spine of leaf much longer than terminal pair of leaflets.

3) Leaflets sparsely hairy or glabrescent.

Habitat:- Dry rocky slopes. (700-)1400-2300 m. generally on limestone, sometimes

a dominant constituent of thorncushion vegetaion.

Distribution:- Cretan Endemic. Confined to the three main massifs, where it is

locally common. Absent from Lefka Ori.

Flowering time:- End of June to mid-Aug.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton

FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS

LEGUMINOSAE

General description:- Trees, shrubs or herbs.

Leaves:- Alternate, rarely opposite, simple to 2-pinnate, stipulate.

Flowers:- Usually hermaphrodite, usually 5-merous. Sepals usually united. Petals

free or somewhat united (connate). Stamens usually 10, sometimes less than 10 or

numerous. Ovary a single, single-celled (unilocular) carpel; style 1.

Fruit:- A dehiscent (splitting open to release the seeds), 2-valved or indehiscent,

occasionally lomentaceous (a flat fruit, constricted between each seed) legume.

Seeds usually without endosperm.

A large number of species, both native and introduced, are cultivated for food, for

fodder and for ornament. Those most frequently utilized as food are to be found in

Cicer, Glycine, Glycyrrhiza, Lens, Pisum, Vicia and Vigna. The edible part is

usually the seed or legume, or both. Species of these genera and many others,

particularly in Anthyllis, Coronilla, Lathyrus, Lotus, Lupinus, Medicago, Melilotus,

Trifolium and Trigonella are cultivated for fodder on a large scale or are planted to

improve pasture.

ASTRAGALUS

General description:- Annual or perennial herbs or small shrubs.

Leaves:- unevenly or odd pinnate (imparipinnate) or evenly pinnate (paripinnate),

sometimes terminating in a spine; leaflets entire.

Flowers:- In racemes or axillary clusters, stemless or stemmed (sessile or

pedicellate). Calyx funnel-shaped (infundibuliform), tubular or bell-shaped

(campanulate), sometimes inflated in fruit, with distinct, equal or unequal teeth;

keel not ending abruptly in a very short, straight point (mucronate) at the apex (very

rarely adaxially mucronate); stamens 10, in two bundles and united by the

filaments (diadelphous) (very rarely 5, monadelphous); stigma and style glabrous.

Fruit:- Legume usually dehiscent, very varied in shape and texture, glabrous or

hairy, unilocular to bilocular. Seeds 1-many.

Key features:-

1) Stipules not forming spines.

2) Keel not dark red, black or beaked, but sometimes mucronate at the apex.

3) Leaves imparipinnate.

4) Umbels without an involucre.

5) Acaulescent herbs.

6) Mucro on the adaxial side of the keel.

7) Corolla c. 3 mm.

8) Stamens diadelphous.

9) Style glabrous.

Descriptions of peduncles and racemes refer to their appearance at anthesis; when

the length of the peduncle is compared with the length of the leaf, the leaf

subtending it is intended.

Subgen. TRAGACANTHA

General description:- Perennials, woody at the base; hairs simple.

Leaves:- Paripinnate, the rhachis ending in a sharp spine; stipules attached to,

surface to surface (adnate) to the petiole for at least ½ their length, but free from

each other.

Flowers:- In dense, sessile racemes in the axils of leaves, partly concealed by the

stipules, usually confined to the middle of the stem. Calyx not inflated in fruit,

hidden by its dense, covered with long, shaggy hairs (villous indumentum), the

teeth splitting to the base in fruit.

Fruit:- Legume c. 5 mm, ovoid-ellipsoid, villous.