Astragalus lentiginosus var. micans |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coulteri |
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freckled milkvetch, shining freckled milkvetch, shining milk vetch |
Borrego Springs milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, clump-forming, 20–40 cm, herbage silvery- or white-silky, hairs 1.1–2 mm. | Plants winter-annual, 10–30 cm, herbage densely pubescent). |
Leaves | 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. |
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 | loosely (12–)20–35-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)4.5–10(–15) cm in fruit. |
loosely 13–35(–48)-flowered; axis (4.5–)6–18(–26) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 4.5–9 cm. |
5–10 cm. |
Flowers | 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. |
12–14.8 mm; calyx 5.2–6.6 mm, tube 4–5.1 mm, lobes 1–2.3 mm; corolla pink-purple. |
Legumes | green, unmottled, obliquely ovoid, inflated, 15–20 × 8–10 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery, densely silky-villous-tomentulose; beak 2.5–4 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 | 23–28. |
(10–)13–20. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. micans |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. coulteri |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering late Feb–May. |
Habitat | Forming large clumps over low slopes of mobile dunes. | Sandy flats and semistabilized dunes, with Larrea. |
Elevation | 900–1000 m. (3000–3300 ft.) | 30–900 m. (100–3000 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; NV |
AZ; CA; Mexico (Sonora) |
Discussion | 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.) |
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. coulteri, A. agninus, A. arthurschottii, A. lentiginosus var. borreganus | |
Name authority | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 8: 22. (1956) | (Bentham) M. E. Jones: Contr. W. Bot. 8: 4. (1898) |
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