Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
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Fish Slough milk vetch |
harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, to 100 cm. | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. |
Stems | prostrate. |
ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
Leaves | 2–5 cm; leaflets 3 or 5, blades linear-oblanceolate, 7–15 mm, terminal leaflet 14–30 mm, apex obtuse or subacute. |
4–10 cm; leaflets (9 or)11–19, blades broadly obovate, obovate-cuneate, obcordate, or oblong to oblanceolate, 5–20 mm, apex usually retuse or emarginate, surfaces glabrate to densely strigulose, hairs appressed or subappressed. |
Racemes | shortly 5–12-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4 cm in fruit. |
10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–5.5 cm. |
2–4.5(–5) cm. |
Flowers | 13 mm; calyx 7 mm, tube 4.5 mm, lobes 2.5 mm; corolla purple. |
9.5–11.5 mm; calyx 5–6.4 mm, tube 3.6–4.2(–4.6) mm, lobes 1.2–2.2 mm; corolla whitish, sometimes wings and keel with lavender tips. |
Legumes | mottled, ovoid-acuminate, moderately inflated, 20–24 × 8–12 mm, stiffly papery, strigulose; beak incurved, 4.5–7 mm, bilocular. |
green or mottled becoming stramineous, obliquely ovoid or subglobose, strongly inflated, 14–26(–30) × (6–)7.5–14 mm, papery-membranous, translucent, glabrous or puberulent; beak 3–9 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 18. |
(7–)16–25. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Jul. | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Saline seep, moist at least in springtime, growing with Ivesia, Juncus, and other herbs. | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. |
Elevation | 1200–1300 m. (3900–4300 ft.) | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
Discussion | Variety piscinensis is known from Fish Slough northwest of Bishop in Mono County. It is similar in habit to vars. multiracemosus and sesquimetralis. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety salinus, widespread in the northern and eastern portions of the Great Basin, occupies a crucial position in the Astragalus lentiginosus complex, serving to link many superficially disparate lines of differentiation (R. C. Barneby 1964). On the one hand, one can trace a sequence passing through var. floribundus to var. ineptus, and then to vars. antonius, idriensis, and sierrae. On the other hand, another strand leads through vars. lentiginosus and platyphyllidius to vars. chartaceus, diphysus, and finally australis. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. salinus | |
Name authority | Barneby: Brittonia 29: 378, fig. 2. (1977) | (Howell) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 86. (1945) |
Web links |