Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. fremontii |
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Coachella milkvetch, Coachella Valley milk vetch, Palm Springs freckled milkvetch |
Fremont's milk vetch, Frémont's 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 annual, biennial, or perennial (short-lived), (4–)8–35(–40) cm. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
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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–)4–9(–12) cm; leaflets (9 or)11–19, blades ovate- or obovate-cuneate, broadly oblanceolate, or rhombic-elliptic, 5–19 mm, apex usually obtuse or emarginate, rarely subacute. |
Racemes | loosely 11–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–10 cm in fruit. |
loosely (8–)10–30-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (2.5–)4–11(–16) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3.5–8 cm. |
2.5–8.5(–10) 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. |
9.1–12(–12.4) mm; calyx (3.4–)3.8–6(–7.9) mm, tube (2.8–)3–4.5 mm, lobes (0.6–)0.9–2(–3.5) mm; corolla usually bright purple, rarely pink-lilac to pure white. |
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. |
pale green, often purple-freckled or purple-mottled, usually broadly and plumply ovoid-acuminate, rarely quite narrowly so, nearly always bladdery-inflated, 14–27(–36) × (5–)8–18 mm, ± bilocular, papery-membranous, subtranslucent, glabrous or sparsely strigulose-villosulous; beak (2–)3–7(–10) mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 24–30. |
(17–)19–31. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. fremontii |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering late Mar–Jul (Sep–Oct). |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, outwash fans, on dunes, in Larrea belt. | Braided stream gravel in riparian communities, gravelly slopes in creosote bush, Joshua tree, juniper, pinyon-juniper, and Jeffrey pine communities. |
Elevation | -10–400 m. (-0–1300 ft.) | 700–2500(–2800) m. (2300–8200(–9200) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
AZ; CA; NV; UT |
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 fremontii is common from southeastern California across southern Nevada to southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona and may be very abundant when adequate moisture is available at an appropriate time. To the south and west, it grades into the larger-flowered var. variabilis; to the north in western Nevada, it grades into var. kennedyi. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. fremontii, A. fremontii subsp. eremicus | |
Name authority | Barneby in F. Shreve and I. L. Wiggins: Veg. Fl. Sonoran Desert, 695. (1964) | (A. Gray) S. Watson: Botany (Fortieth Parallel), 66. (1871) |
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