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Fremont's milk vetch, Frémont's freckled milkvetch

Habit Plants annual, biennial, or perennial (short-lived), (4–)8–35(–40) cm.
Leaves

(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 (8–)10–30-flowered, lax and open in fruit;

axis (2.5–)4–11(–16) cm in fruit.

Peduncles

2.5–8.5(–10) cm.

Flowers

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

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

(17–)19–31.

Astragalus lentiginosus var. fremontii

Phenology Flowering late Mar–Jul (Sep–Oct).
Habitat Braided stream gravel in riparian communities, gravelly slopes in creosote bush, Joshua tree, juniper, pinyon-juniper, and Jeffrey pine communities.
Elevation 700–2500(–2800) m. (2300–8200(–9200) ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; NV; UT
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

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.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Diphysi > Astragalus lentiginosus
Sibling taxa
A. lentiginosus var. albifolius, A. lentiginosus var. ambiguus, A. lentiginosus var. antonius, A. lentiginosus var. australis, A. lentiginosus var. chartaceus, A. lentiginosus var. coachellae, A. lentiginosus var. coulteri, A. lentiginosus var. diphysus, A. lentiginosus var. floribundus, A. lentiginosus var. higginsii, A. lentiginosus var. idriensis, A. lentiginosus var. ineptus, A. lentiginosus var. kennedyi, A. lentiginosus var. kernensis, A. lentiginosus var. latus, A. lentiginosus var. lentiginosus, A. lentiginosus var. macrolobus, A. lentiginosus var. maricopae, A. lentiginosus var. micans, A. lentiginosus var. mokiacensis, A. lentiginosus var. multiracemosus, A. lentiginosus var. negundo, A. lentiginosus var. nigricalycis, A. lentiginosus var. oropedii, A. lentiginosus var. palans, A. lentiginosus var. piscinensis, A. lentiginosus var. platyphyllidius, A. lentiginosus var. pohlii, A. lentiginosus var. salinus, A. lentiginosus var. scorpionis, A. lentiginosus var. semotus, A. lentiginosus var. sesquimetralis, A. lentiginosus var. sierrae, A. lentiginosus var. stramineus, A. lentiginosus var. toyabensis, A. lentiginosus var. trumbullensis, A. lentiginosus var. variabilis, A. lentiginosus var. vitreus, A. lentiginosus var. wahweapensis, A. lentiginosus var. wilsonii, A. lentiginosus var. yuccanus
Synonyms A. fremontii, A. fremontii subsp. eremicus
Name authority (A. Gray) S. Watson: Botany (Fortieth Parallel), 66. (1871)
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