Astragalus lychnobius Podlech & L.R.Xu

Plants 6-8 cm tall, acaulescent or nearly so, loosely caes­pitose, covered with bifurcate hairs. Stems, if present, up to 1 cm, very densely covered with strongly asymmetrically bifur­cate, ascending to partly spreading, ± flexuous, tangled, white hairs 1-1.5 mm. Leaves 3-7 cm; stipules 4-5 mm, adnate to petiole for 1-2 mm, rather densely covered with symmetrically or asymmetrically bifurcate, subappressed to slightly ascending, white hairs ca. 0.5 mm, at margins with basifixed hairs; petiole 1.5-3 cm, like rachis densely covered with ± medifixed, sub­appressed to ascending hairs 0.5-1 mm and with a few strongly asymmetrically bifurcate, spreading hairs ca. 1 mm; leaflets in 8-10 pairs, narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 3-8 × 1.5-4 mm, both surfaces densely to rather densely (when young) or loosely (when mature) covered with ± symmetrically to slightly asym­metrically bifurcate, appressed to partly slightly ascending hairs 0.8-1.2 mm. Racemes subsessile, 1-4-flowered; bracts ca. 2 mm, densely white hairy, with some black hairs mixed in. Ca­lyx 11-12 mm, densely covered with strongly asymmetrically bifurcate or subbasifixed, tangled, flexuous, white hairs 0.5-1 mm and with more medifixed black hairs, especially toward teeth, sometimes with 5 blackish longitudinal stripes; teeth 1-1.5 mm. Petal color probably whitish or yellow, yellowish when dry; standard obovate, ca. 25 × 9 mm, apex widely and deeply emarginate; wings ca. 21 mm, limbs narrowly obovate, widely obliquely emarginate; keel ca. 20 mm. Ovary sessile, narrowly oblong, very densely villous, with ± spreading white hairs. Leg­umes unknown.