Astragalus macrocarpus DC.
Tragacantha macrocarpa (DC.) Kuntze
Eng.: Milkvetch. Fre.: Astragale. Ara. (Egypt): Beid el homaar.
Perennial herbaceous plant, 30-80 cm in height, with a woody base, highly branched from the base, with erect stems, ridged and hollow, yellowish villous. Leaves 10-25 cm, with triangular stipules, 15-25 mm, hairy and scarious; rachis 2-3 mm wide, ridged, rigid; with 8-20 pairs of leaflets, 1-1.8 × 0.5-1 cm, petiolulate, broadly ovate or elliptic, obtuse, rounded or retuse, hairy on the underside and glabrous on the upper side. Inflorescences in racemes, with peduncle 1-2 cm and with 5-12 pedicellate flowers, with pedicels c. 2 mm. Calyx 1-1.4 cm, with subulate teeth shorter than the tube. Corolla 2.5-3.2 cm, papilionoid, yellow. Androecium diadelphous. Ovary sessile. Pod 3.5-4.5 × 2-3(4) cm, inflated, ovoid, woody, ending in a rigid beak 0.8-1 cm, with 6-10 seeds. Seeds 5-6 × 3-4 mm, reniform, brownish.
Flowering:
March to June.
Fruiting:
June to September.
Habitat:
Sandy plains and edges of cultivated areas.
Distribution:
Eastern Mediterranean species, common in Turkey, Palestine, Israel, Egypt, in the Sinai Peninsula, and doubtful in Libya and Syria. The subsp. lefkarensis Meikle & Kirchhoff is endemic to Cyprus and is considered critically endangered.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.