Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
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Higgins' freckled milkvetch, Higgins' milkvetch |
wahweap freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 15–25 cm. | Plants perennial (short-lived, sometimes flowering first year), 10–25(–35) cm. |
Stems | diffuse and incurved-ascending. |
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Leaves | 3–11 cm; leaflets 15–21, blades lanceolate-elliptic to obovate, 8–18 mm, apex emarginate. |
(2.5–)4–11 cm; leaflets 13–23, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, broadly oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, (3–)5–17(–20) mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | 7–17-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–4 cm in fruit. |
10–20-flowered, flowering from middle and distally, compact to loose in fruit; axis 1.5–5.5(–7) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–6.5 cm. |
2.5–6(–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. |
(12.5–)15–18.2 mm; calyx (6.2–)7.5–10.5 mm, tube (4.6–)5.2–6.7 mm, lobes 1.4–3.8 mm; corolla usually bright pink-purple with pale, striate eye, rarely white (concolorous). |
Legumes | green, sometimes mottled, becoming stramineous, ovoid, greatly inflated, 19–27 × 11–16(–19) mm, semibilocular, stiffly papery, thinly translucent, glabrous. |
green, sometimes stramineous or purple-mottled, almost always very strongly incurved, very obliquely ovoid-acuminate, moderately or greatly inflated, 15–30(–40) × (7–)9–15 mm, bilocular, thinly papery, semitranslucent, seeds visible, to almost leathery, opaque, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, 6–15 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 30–35. |
(20–)24–28. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. higginsii |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–early Jun. | Flowering Apr–Jul. |
Habitat | Sandy to loamy soils, with Ptelea-Rhus-Prosopis, and yucca, oak, mesquite communities. | Pinyon-juniper, sagebrush, and mixed desert shrub communities. |
Elevation | 800–1100 m. (2600–3600 ft.) | 1400–1900 m. (4600–6200 ft.) |
Distribution |
NM; TX |
AZ; UT |
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 wahweapensis may be very abundant in wetter years, filling the interspaces in pinyon-juniper woodland much like an alfalfa field. It is found on the plateaus and drainages affluent to Lake Powell in eastern Kane and Garfield counties in Utah, and in northern Arizona. Variety wahweapensis grades into the slender-podded var. palans to the east and the ovoid-fruited var. diphysus southward. (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: Great Basin Naturalist 38: 286. (1978) |
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