Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
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Higgins' freckled milkvetch, Higgins' milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, Mount Trumbull milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 15–25 cm. | Plants perennial, 30–45(–65) cm, herbage green or subglabrescent. |
Leaves | 3–11 cm; leaflets 15–21, blades lanceolate-elliptic to obovate, 8–18 mm, apex emarginate. |
2–9.5(–10.5) cm; leaflets (7–)13–17, blades broadly obovate to oblanceolate or elliptic, 5–15 mm, apex retuse to round or subacute, adaxial surface usually strigose to strigulose, sometimes glabrate or glabrous. |
Racemes | 7–17-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–4 cm in fruit. |
loosely 4–15(–17)-flowered; axis elongating, 3–9.5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–6.5 cm. |
4.5–7.5 cm. |
Flowers | 17–20 mm; calyx 7–10.4 mm, tube 6–6.8 mm, lobes 3–3.5 mm; corolla pale violet. |
13–17 mm; calyx 6.3–7.4 mm, tube 4.8–5.5 mm, lobes 1.7–2 mm; corolla pink- or red-purple, sometimes with pale or white wing tips. |
Legumes | green, sometimes mottled, becoming stramineous, ovoid, greatly inflated, 19–27 × 11–16(–19) mm, semibilocular, stiffly papery, thinly translucent, glabrous. |
evidently persistent, stramineous or mottled, linear-oblong to oblong or narrowly ellipsoid, not or scarcely inflated, 17–32 × 4–5.5(–7.5) mm, ± bilocular, somewhat fleshy becoming leathery or stiffly papery, strigulose; beak 3–5 mm, unilocular; stipe 0.1–1 mm. |
Seeds | 30–35. |
14–28. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–early Jun. | Flowering Apr (Sep). |
Habitat | Sandy to loamy soils, with Ptelea-Rhus-Prosopis, and yucca, oak, mesquite communities. | Sandstone outcrops and gravel, with Agave, Ephedra, Mortonia, Purshia, and other warm-desert shrubs. |
Elevation | 800–1100 m. (2600–3600 ft.) | 900–1800 m. (3000–5900 ft.) |
Distribution |
NM; TX |
AZ |
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 trumbullensis is restricted to Mohave County. It is closely related to vars. mokiacensis and palans, weakly differentiated by a series of features that intergrade insensibly but taken in combination are more or less diagnostic (as is true for most members of the lentiginosus complex). J. A. Alexander (2005) provided statistical evidence that this variety is indistinguishable from var. mokiacensis (as Astragalus mokiacensis), and he considered the two synonymous. (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) | S. L. Welsh & N. D. Atwood: Rhodora 103: 81, fig. 3. (2001) |
Web links |