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White Milk-Vetch
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White Milk-Vetch
ative Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: White Milk-Vetch
Botanical name: Astragalus peduncularis    Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonyms: Astragalus peduncularia

White Milk-Vetch is a perennial herb about 70 cm or less tall, stem velvety, hairs appressed. Flowers are borne in a long-stalked raceme, stalk 10-18 cm long. Flowers are greenish white, vexillum sometimes purple-tinged. Vexillum about 1.5-1.6 cm long. Bracts are about 2-3 mm long, black ciliate, longer than the flower-stalk. Calyx is about 8-10 mm long, velvety, hairs black and white, teeth about 1-1.5 mm long. Keel about 1.0-1.1 cm long. Leaves are imparipinnately compound, about 5-10 cm long, stalk short, rachis white-velvety, leaflets 15-25, 1.0-1.9 cm long, elliptic-oblong or broadly sub-linear, obtuse, mucronate, velvet-hairy, hairs appressed. Stipules are united about the middle, encircling the stem, about 6-8 mm long, pointed. Fruit is about 1.0-1.5 cm long, sessile, velvety, hairs appressed, white and black; incompletely bilocular, 6-10-seeded. White Milk-Vetch is found in the Himalayas, from Afghanistan to Kashmir and Lahaul, at altitudes of 1100-3700 m. Flowering: June-July.

Identification credit: Krishan Lal Photographed in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh.

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