Astragalus lentiginosus var. albifolius |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. kennedyi |
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northern freckled milkvetch, Owens Valley milkvetch, white leaf milk vetch |
Kennedy's freckled milkvetch, Kennedy's milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, halophyte, 30–100 cm. | Plants biennial or perennial (short-lived), (10–)15–40(–50) cm; herbage villosulous. |
Stems | decumbent and ascending. |
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Leaves | 2–9 cm; leaflets (9 or)11–17(–21), blades oblanceolate, elliptic, or narrowly oblong, (3–)5–15(–18) mm, apex obtuse or subacute. |
4.5–12(–15) cm; leaflets (9–)15–21(or 23), blades obovate-cuneate to broadly oblong-oblanceolate, (5–)7–20 mm, apex obtuse, emarginate, or retuse. |
Racemes | (9–)12–35-flowered, crowded into subglobose or cylindric heads, short and compact in fruit; axis obscured, (0.5–)1–4 cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)15–35-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)5–12 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | (1–)1.5–6.5 cm. |
(3–)4.5–7.5 cm. |
Flowers | 8.2–11.5 mm; calyx 5–7.3 mm, tube 3.2–4.5 mm, lobes 1.5–2.8 mm; corolla whitish, sometimes with purple veins, or pink-purple with white wing tips. |
(11.8–)12.5–17 mm; calyx 6.1–8.8 mm, tube 4.1–5.7 mm, lobes 1.6–3.1 mm; corolla bright pink. |
Legumes | pale green and purple-mottled becoming stramineous, plumply ovoid-acuminate, bladdery-inflated, 9–17 × 8–14 mm, papery-membranous, subtranslucent, strigulose; beak decurved, triangular, 3–5 mm, unilocular. |
stramineous, usually narrowly ovoid-acuminate, more rarely plumply so, bladdery-inflated, (20–)25–30 × 9–15 mm, papery-membranous, usually lustrous, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak 5–9 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 10–15. |
(24–)26–36. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. albifolius |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. kennedyi |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jul. | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Saline, summer-dry flats about seepage areas in lower foothills, on clay soils moist in springtime. | Alkaline dunes, sandy valleys, dry stony knolls, sometimes on volcanic gravel or cinders. |
Elevation | 600–1500 m. (2000–4900 ft.) | 1100–1800 m. (3600–5900 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
NV |
Discussion | Variety albifolius was described as an elongate, ungainly, trailing or scrambling halophyte (D. Isely 1998); it occurs at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County near Big Pine and Lone Pine, near Muroc in Kern County, and near Lancaster in Los Angeles County. Astragalus albifolius (M. E. Jones) Abrams is an illegitimate later homonym of A. albifolius Freyn & Sintenis 1893. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety kennedyi is a locally abundant endemic of west-central Nevada, blending with var. fremontii in the south. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Cystium kennedyi | |
Name authority | M. E. Jones: Rev. N.-Amer. Astragalus, 124. (1923) | (Rydberg) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 121. (1945) |
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