Astragalus lithophilus Kar. & Kir.

Plants 15-45 cm tall; hairs very fine, spreading, white, in inflorescence also black, 1-3(-4) mm. Stem simple or branched at base, up to 7 mm thick, often in lower part leafless and with scalelike stipules, glabrous or sparsely hairy. Leaves 9-20 cm; stipules membranous, 7-20 mm, glabrous or sparsely hairy; petiole 3-5 cm, at base up to 3 mm thick, like rachis glabrous or sparsely hairy; leaflets in 12-15 pairs, ovate to elliptic, 8-15 × 4-9 mm, glabrous on both surfaces or abaxially sparsely to loosely hairy, apex rounded to truncate. Racemes loosely 3-6-flowered; peduncle 0.5-4.5 cm, glabrous or sparsely white hairy, toward raceme increasingly black hairy; bracts whitish mem­branous, linear-acute, 7-13 mm, white and black hairy. Calyx 13-17 mm, loosely covered with spreading white and black hairs 1-2 mm; teeth 7-10 mm. Petals yellow; standard obovate, 19-29 × ca. 9 mm, apex emarginate; wings 18-22 mm; keel 17-21 mm. Legumes with a curved stipe 4-5 mm, in­flated el­lipsoid, 20-30 mm, ca. 15 mm high and wide, grooved ven­trally and dorsally, with a straight beak 2-3 mm, 2-locular; valves thin, glabrous or with scattered spreading hairs.