Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
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freckled milkvetch, southern freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial (short-lived), clump-forming, 25–40(–60) cm. |
Stems | decumbent and ascending. |
Leaves | (5–)6–17 cm; leaflets (13 or)15–21(or 23), blades usually obovate, broadly elliptic, or rhombic-ovate, rarely suborbiculate, (4–)6–25 mm, apex emarginate or retuse. |
Racemes | loosely (10–)15–33-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)4–12 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–7(–9) cm. |
Flowers | (13.2–)14.5–18 mm; calyx (5.3–)6.4–10.8 mm, tube (4.5–)4.8–7 mm, lobes (0.8–)1.6–3.8 mm; corolla pink-purple, sometimes pale. |
Legumes | green or faintly mottled becoming stramineous or purplish, narrowly to broadly ovoid-acuminate or broadly lanceoloid-acuminate, slightly or greatly inflated, 12–22 × (4–)5–13(–15) mm, bilocular, thinly papery, usually glabrous, rarely sparsely pubescent; beak 4–8 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 18–22. |
2n | = 22. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. |
Habitat | Open desert, sandy playas and outwash fans, plains, washes in foothills of desert mountains, with Larrea, Carnegiea gigantea, in yucca-grasslands. |
Elevation | 600–1300 m. (2000–4300 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ; NM; TX; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora) |
Discussion | Variety australis is common and abundant in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, grading into var. yuccanus to the north in Arizona. Eastward it extends to far western trans-Pecos Texas and becomes similar to var. diphysus. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | |
Sibling taxa | |
Name authority | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 117, plate 3, figs. 15–19. (1945) |
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