Reprinted with permission from the New Britton 

 and Brown Illustrated Flora of the Northeastern 

 United States and Adjacent Canada, Vol. 2, page 417, 

 Copyright 1952, The New York Botanical Garden. 



ASTRAGALUS RACEMOSUS 

 RACEME MILKVETCH 



Raceme Milkvetch is a coarse, herbaceous perennial with few to many erect stems, 15-70 cm high, and arising from a 

 woody taproot and branched rootcrown. The pinnately compound leaves are 4-15 cm long with 11-31 narrowly to 

 broadly elliptic leaflets. Foliage is thinly to densely covered with short hairs. Inflorescences with 15-70 densely 

 clustered flowers arise from the axils of the upper leaves. The nodding, whitish flowers are 16-21 mm long with a 

 partially reflexed upper petal and purplish tinged lower petals. The calyx is 8-1 1 mm long and glabrous or with 

 scattered hairs. The pendant, oblong-elliptic pods have a basal, 3-7 mm long stalk, are glabrous, triangular in cross 

 section, with 3 sides that are nearly flat and equal-width, and 15-30 mm long. 



Flowering in late June-early July. 



The combination of coarse, erect stems, short pubescence, and pendant pods, triangular in cross-section, is diagnostic 

 of this species in the n. Great Plains. The more common A. DRUMMONDII is similar but has pods dorsiventrally 

 compressed with 2 parallel grooves on the bottom, and has foliage with long spreading hairs. 



