曲之黄耆 qu zhi huang qi

Plants 7-18 cm tall, vegetative parts covered with medi­fixed white hairs 0.3-1 mm, stipules and nodes also with some black hairs. Stems mostly several, slender, prostrate to ascending or rarely erect, loosely appressed hairy. Leaves 2-4.5 cm; stip­ules 2-4 mm, nearly free from petiole, rather densely hairy; petiole 1-1.5 cm, like rachis slender, rather densely appressed hairy; leaflets in 2-4 pairs, remote, linear to narrowly elliptic, 4-10 × 1-2 mm, abaxially rather densely appressed hairy, adax­ially loosely appressed hairy, apex obtuse to subacute. Racemes short, rather loosely (2-)4-7-flowered; peduncle 2-11 cm, slen­der, rather loosely hairy; bracts 1-2 mm, white or black and white hairy. Calyx 11-13 mm, densely or more rarely loosely covered with appressed white hairs 0.8-1 mm and with mostly shorter black hairs; teeth 1.5-2 mm. Petals purplish or dirty yellowish violet, rarely pale yellowish; standard rhombic-ellip­tic to obovate, 20-21 × 7.5-9 mm, slightly constricted below middle, apex truncate to slightly retuse; wings 18-20 mm; keel 15-17 mm. Legumes (unripe) sessile, linear, erect to horizon­tally spreading, ca. 20 mm, ca. 2 mm high, shortly attenuate; valves densely covered with appressed to subappressed, ± sym­metrically to strongly asymmetrically bifurcate, often flexuous, partly distinctly flattened, white hairs 1-1.5 mm and with much fewer and shorter black hairs.

Gravelly areas; 2700-3700 m. Xinjiang, Xizang [Kashmir].

The Chinese record of Astragalus gladiatus Boissier (FRPS 42(1): 306. 1993) is referable to A. anfractuosus.