Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. diphysus |
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Coachella milkvetch, Coachella Valley milk vetch, Palm Springs freckled milkvetch |
double-bladder freckled milkvetch, 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, (10–)15–35(–40) cm. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
usually ascending, rarely prostrate. |
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. |
3–10(–14) cm; leaflets (11–)15–21(or 23), blades oblong-oblanceolate, obovate, rhombic-obovate, elliptic, or ovate-cuneate, 4–20 mm, apex truncate-emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely 11–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–10 cm in fruit. |
± densely becoming shortly (9–)12–24-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis not or little elongating, 1–4(–6) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3.5–8 cm. |
(1.5–)2.5–8.5 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. |
(12.6–)14.5–19 mm; calyx 7–10.4 mm, tube (5.1–)5.5–8 mm, lobes 1.5–3.2 mm; corolla pink-purple. |
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, purple- or red-tinged, or brightly mottled, slightly incurved, mostly plumply ovoid or subglobose, (10–)14–27(–30) × (6.5–)8–18 mm, semibilocular, stiffly papery or leathery, glabrous; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, (3–)4–10 mm, unilocular or bilocular. |
Seeds | 24–30. |
28–35. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. diphysus |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering Mar–Jun(–Aug). |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, outwash fans, on dunes, in Larrea belt. | Yucca-grasslands, pinyon-juniper forests, other xeric communities. |
Elevation | -10–400 m. (-0–1300 ft.) | 1400–2300 m. (4600–7500 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
AZ; CO; NM |
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 diphysus is widespread, ranging across the northern parts of Arizona and New Mexico, extending northward into western Colorado. D. Isely (1998) recognized var. macdougalii, here considered a form with diminutive fruits, from the San Francisco Peaks area of Arizona. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. diphysus, A. lentiginosus var. albiflorus, A. lentiginosus var. macdougalii | |
Name authority | Barneby in F. Shreve and I. L. Wiggins: Veg. Fl. Sonoran Desert, 695. (1964) | (A. Gray) M. E. Jones: Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci., ser. 2, 5: 673. (1895) |
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