Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. micans |
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Higgins' freckled milkvetch, Higgins' milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, shining freckled milkvetch, shining milk vetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 15–25 cm. | Plants perennial, clump-forming, 20–40 cm, herbage silvery- or white-silky, hairs 1.1–2 mm. |
Leaves | 3–11 cm; leaflets 15–21, blades lanceolate-elliptic to obovate, 8–18 mm, apex emarginate. |
4.5–9.5 cm; leaflets 11–17, blades usually narrowly to broadly obovate or ovate, rarely rhombic-suborbiculate, 5–14 mm, apex truncate-emarginate to subacute. |
Racemes | 7–17-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–4 cm in fruit. |
loosely (12–)20–35-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)4.5–10(–15) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–6.5 cm. |
4.5–9 cm. |
Flowers | 17–20 mm; calyx 7–10.4 mm, tube 6–6.8 mm, lobes 3–3.5 mm; corolla pale violet. |
12.2–14.3 mm; calyx 6–7.6 mm, tube 4.5–4.9 mm, lobes 1.4–2.6 mm; corolla pink-lavender. |
Legumes | green, sometimes mottled, becoming stramineous, ovoid, greatly inflated, 19–27 × 11–16(–19) mm, semibilocular, stiffly papery, thinly translucent, glabrous. |
green, unmottled, obliquely ovoid, inflated, 15–20 × 8–10 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery, densely silky-villous-tomentulose; beak 2.5–4 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 30–35. |
23–28. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. micans |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–early Jun. | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Sandy to loamy soils, with Ptelea-Rhus-Prosopis, and yucca, oak, mesquite communities. | Forming large clumps over low slopes of mobile dunes. |
Elevation | 800–1100 m. (2600–3600 ft.) | 900–1000 m. (3000–3300 ft.) |
Distribution |
NM; TX |
CA; NV |
Discussion | Variety higginsii, from Chaves County in New Mexico, and Hudspeth, Hutchinson, and Potter counties in Texas, almost certainly is a derivative of var. diphysus, differing only in its pale flowers. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety micans is a local adjunct of the variable var. variabilis (D. Isely 1998), restricted to the southern end of Eureka Valley in Inyo County, California, and adjacent to Big Dune and in the Amargosa Desert, near Lathrop Wells in Nye County, Nevada. Isely questioned its recognition at varietal rank, initially considering it a local dune-specialized ecotype. Although it is ordinarily a strong perennial, some plants are evidently short-lived, a feature shared with var. coulteri. Variety micans is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | S. L. Welsh & K. H. Thorne: Brittonia 33: 296, fig. 2. (1981) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 8: 22. (1956) |
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