Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
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Coachella milkvetch, Coachella Valley milk vetch, Palm Springs freckled milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, southern freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants winter-annual or perennial (short-lived, often flowering first year), clump-forming, (10–)15–30(–55) cm, herbage silvery-canescent, hairs to 0.7–1.2 mm. | Plants perennial (short-lived), clump-forming, 25–40(–60) cm. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
decumbent and ascending. |
Leaves | 5–11.5 cm; leaflets (7–)11–17(–21), blades broadly oval to obovate-cuneate or oblong-elliptic, 5–15(–17) mm, apex emarginate, or obtuse and apiculate. |
(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 11–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–10 cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)15–33-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)4–12 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3.5–8 cm. |
3–7(–9) cm. |
Flowers | 12.7–14.5 mm; calyx 6.6–7.8 mm, tube 4.5–5.3 mm, lobes 1.7–2.9 mm; corolla pink-purple. |
(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 | usually mottled, broadly and obliquely ovoid-acuminate, greatly inflated, 16–21 × 9–14 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery, canescent-strigulose; beak 3.5–6 mm, unilocular. |
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 | 24–30. |
18–22. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering Feb–May. |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, outwash fans, on dunes, in Larrea belt. | Open desert, sandy playas and outwash fans, plains, washes in foothills of desert mountains, with Larrea, Carnegiea gigantea, in yucca-grasslands. |
Elevation | -10–400 m. (-0–1300 ft.) | 600–1300 m. (2000–4300 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
AZ; NM; TX; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora) |
Discussion | Variety coachellae occurs at low elevations in and around the Coachella Valley in Riverside County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Barneby in F. Shreve and I. L. Wiggins: Veg. Fl. Sonoran Desert, 695. (1964) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 117, plate 3, figs. 15–19. (1945) |
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