Astragalus megalanthus Dc.

Plants 10-18 cm tall, loosely caespitose, vegetative parts covered with ± medifixed, appressed to subappressed, white hairs. Stems several, parts of current year 2-6 cm, very densely covered with hairs ca. 1 mm. Leaves 4-15 cm; stipules 3-7 mm, adnate to petiole for 1-2 mm, lower ones ovate-triangular, distinctly connate behind stem, upper narrowly triangular, free from each other, sparsely to loosely hairy, at margins also with basifixed hairs; petiole 3.5-6 cm, with rachis loosely to rather densely hairy like stem; leaflets in 7-10 pairs, 5-15 × 2-5 mm, abaxially somewhat densely and adaxially loosely covered with mostly slightly asymmetrically bifurcate hairs 1.5-2 mm. Ra­cemes 3-4 cm, rather densely 5-10-flowered; peduncle 1.5-7 cm, sparsely to loosely covered with subappressed white hairs; bracts 3-5 mm, with white or white and black hairs, at margins with basifixed hairs. Calyx 12-16 mm, at anthesis tubular, soon slightly inflated ovoid but ruptured by legume, densely covered with tangled, subappressed to ascending, white hairs 1-2 mm and also, especially toward teeth, with mostly shorter black hairs; teeth 2-3 mm. Petals violet, drying yellow; standard obovate, 20-26 × ca. 7 mm, slightly to distinctly constricted in lower 1/3, apex emarginate; wings 19-22 mm, limbs obliquely emarginate; keel 16-19 mm. Legumes sessile, partly enclosed in ruptured calyx, 9-11 mm, ca. 5 mm high and ca. 3 mm wide, with a beak ca. 1 mm; valves densely covered with strongly asymmetrically bifurcate, spreading, white hairs 1-1.2 mm, gla­brescent with age and minutely warty.