Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. negundo |
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Coachella milkvetch, Coachella Valley milk vetch, Palm Springs 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, 19–32 cm. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
diffuse and incurved-ascending, often red- or purple-tinged. |
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. |
(2.5–)4–11 cm; leaflets (7–)13–19, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, broadly oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, (2–)5–17 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely 11–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–10 cm in fruit. |
5–11-flowered, flowering from middle and distally, short and compact in fruit; axis 0.5–5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3.5–8 cm. |
2.2–5 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. |
12.5–14.5 mm; calyx 7.5–10.2 mm, tube 5.2–5.8 mm, lobes 1.8–4.4 mm; corolla bright pink-purple with pale, striate eye. |
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. |
purplish, often red-mottled, becoming stramineous, ellipsoid to lanceoloid-ovoid or ellipsoid-acuminate, moderately inflated, 23–34 × 6–15 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery or almost leathery, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, 7–12 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 24–30. |
40. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coachellae |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. negundo |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering late Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, outwash fans, on dunes, in Larrea belt. | Salt and sand desert shrub communities with shadscale, greasewood, sagebrush, and horsebrush, in pinyon-juniper communities. |
Elevation | -10–400 m. (-0–1300 ft.) | 1400–1700(–2300) m. (4600–5600(–7500) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
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 negundo, which is known from Box Elder, Millard, and Tooele counties, fills a portion of the gap in distribution between var. platyphyllidius, with which it shares relatively thick-textured fruits, and var. chartaceus, with which it is transitional to the south. From either taxon, the elongated fruit is evidently diagnostic, apparent only as fruits approach maturity. The lower flower number is characteristic of var. negundo and is more or less diagnostic. (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) | S. L. Welsh & N. D. Atwood in S. L. Welsh: N. Amer. Sp. Astragalus, 302, fig. 285u. (2007) |
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