Astragalus qitaiensis Podlech & L.R.Xu

Plants ca. 30 cm tall, covered with ± medifixed, appressed hairs. Stems of current year 5-10 cm, sparsely to loosely covered with white hairs 0.3-0.5 mm, at nodes sometimes with black hairs mixed in. Leaves 10-12 cm; stipules 7-15 mm, high vaginate-connate behind stem, loosely to rather densely covered with symmetrically or asymmetrically bifurcate white hairs 0.2-0.5 mm; petiole 3-4 cm, with rachis sparsely to loosely white hairy like stem; leaflets in 9 or 10 pairs, elliptic, 10-25 × 5-12 mm, both surfaces sparsely covered with white hairs 0.3-0.5 mm, apex rounded to slightly retuse. Racemes ca. 4 cm, densely many flowered; peduncle 8-10 cm, subglabrous; bracts 4-5 mm, sparsely black ciliate. Calyx 9-10 mm, loosely covered with medifixed, appressed, black hairs 0.2-0.4 mm and with symmetrically or asymmetrically bifurcate white hairs 0.5-0.7 mm; teeth 4-5 mm. Petals probably pale greenish yel­low; standard elliptic, 15-16 × ca. 5 mm, emarginate; wings ca. 14 mm; keel ca. 13 mm. Legumes sessile, obliquely erect, ca. 10 mm, ca. 3 mm high and wide, with a beak 1-2 mm, incom­pletely 2-locular; valves thinly leathery, densely covered with symmetrically or asymmetrically bifurcate, subappressed to slightly ascending, ± flexuous, black hairs 0.2-1 mm, partly glabrescent with age.