Astragalus alpinus subsp. alpinus

Atelophragma alpinum (L.) Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 55: 130. 1928.
Astragalus alpinus L. Sp. PI. 760. 1753. Phaca astragalina DC. Astrag. 52. 1802.
'Colutea astragalina Poir. in Lam. Encyc. Suppl. 1: 561. 1810. Phaca andina Nutt.; T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 1: 345, as synonym. 1838. Astragalus pauciflorus Hook. Lond. Jour Bot. 6: 210. 1847. Tragacantha alpina Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 942. 1891. Astragalus astragalinus Sheldon. Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 65. 1894. Astragalus giganteus Sheldon, Minn. Bot. Stud. 1: 65, in part. 1894. Not A. gisanleus S. Wats.
1882. Tium alpinum Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 32: 659. 1906.
Phaca alpina Piper, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 11: 371. 1906. Not P. alpina L. 1753. Astragalus andinus M. E. Jones, Rev. Astrag. 137. 1923.
A perennial, with a slender, creeping, cespitose rootstock; stems slender, decumbent, 1-3 dm. high, branched at the base; leaves spreading, 3-10 cm. long; stipules ovate or lanceolate, 4-6 mm. long, or the lower deltoid and scarious; leaflets 11-23, oval or elliptic, 5-10 mm. long, 3-6 mm. wide, thin, rounded or retuse at the apex, pilose on both sides or glabrate above; peduncles 5-10 cm. long; racemes short and dense, 1-3 cm. long, or in fruit 3-5 cm. long; bracts subulate, black-hairy, 1-2 mm. long; pedicels 1 mm. long; calyx black-hairy, the tube 2-2.5 mm. long, the teeth lanceolate, 1 mm. long; corolla purple or lilac, with purple keel; banner 7-10 mm. long, broadly obovate, retuse; wings shorter, the blade oblong, falcate, with a long reflexed auricle; keel-petals fully as long, the blade obliquely lunate, more curved towards the blunt dark tip; pod black-hairy, stipitate, the stipe about 2 mm. long, the body about 1 cm. long, 4 mm. wide, sulcate on the lower suture, the septum 0.5 mm. wide; seeds 4, obliquely reniform, 2.5 mm. long, brown.
Type locality: Lapland.
Distribution: Boreal, subarctic, and alpine America, Europe, and Asia, extending south in the Rockies to Colorado.