Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
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harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
Leaves | 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 | 10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
Flowers | 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 | 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 | (7–)16–25. |
2n | = 22. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
Discussion | 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. |
Parent taxa | |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | A. salinus |
Name authority | (Howell) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 86. (1945) |
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