Astragalus lentiginosus var. ineptus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coulteri |
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freckled milkvetch, fumbling milk vetch, homely milkvetch |
Borrego Springs milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, (1–)3–30 cm, herbage loosely strigulose or villosulous. | Plants winter-annual, 10–30 cm, herbage densely pubescent). |
Leaves | 1.5–5.5 cm; leaflets (9–)15–21, crowded, blades obovate or oblanceolate, (1–)2–10 mm, apex obtuse or retuse. |
6–10(–16) cm; leaflets (7–)15–19, blades broadly obovate-cuneate to elliptic-oblanceolate, 4–14(–21) mm, apex obtuse or emarginate to retuse. |
Racemes | (4–)10–21-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis (0.3–)1–2.5 cm in fruit. |
loosely 13–35(–48)-flowered; axis (4.5–)6–18(–26) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 0.5–2 cm. |
5–10 cm. |
Flowers | (8.8–)9.8–12 mm; calyx (4.8–)5.4–7.3 mm, tube (3.6–)3.9–4.9 mm, lobes (1–)1.2–2.4 mm; corolla whitish or cream, sometimes with pink tips. |
12–14.8 mm; calyx 5.2–6.6 mm, tube 4–5.1 mm, lobes 1–2.3 mm; corolla pink-purple. |
Legumes | usually faintly mottled becoming stramineous, plumply ovoid- or ellipsoid-acuminate, strongly inflated, 10–18 × (5–)6–12 mm, thinly papery, strigulose or, sometimes, glabrous; beak erect or incurved, deltoid, 3–5 mm, unilocular. |
greenish stramineous, sometimes faintly mottled, lanceoloid to ovoid-acuminate, not or scarcely inflated, slightly turgid, 15–23 × 4.5–6 mm, ± bilocular, thin becoming papery, silky-strigulose-villosulous; beak short, unilocular. |
Seeds | (12–)14–19. |
(10–)13–20. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. ineptus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coulteri |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Aug. | Flowering late Feb–May. |
Habitat | Gravelly slopes, ridges, and talus, on coarse granitic sand or volcanic tuff, in bristlecone pine and alpine tundra communities. | Sandy flats and semistabilized dunes, with Larrea. |
Elevation | 1800–3700 m. (5900–12100 ft.) | 30–900 m. (100–3000 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
AZ; CA; Mexico (Sonora) |
Discussion | Variety ineptus occurs along the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada from Alpine County southward to the Inconsolable Range, Inyo County, Sweetwater Mountains, Mono County, and Bonita Meadows, Tulare County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety coulteri is found in the southern Colorado Desert, extending from eastern San Diego County in California, to the Yuma Desert in extreme southwestern Yuma County in Arizona, and adjacent Sonora, Mexico. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. ineptus | A. coulteri, A. agninus, A. arthurschottii, A. lentiginosus var. borreganus |
Name authority | (A. Gray) M. E. Jones: Rev. N.-Amer. Astragalus, 124. (1923) | (Bentham) M. E. Jones: Contr. W. Bot. 8: 4. (1898) |
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