Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
|
---|---|---|
harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, southern freckled milkvetch |
|
Habit | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. | Plants perennial (short-lived), clump-forming, 25–40(–60) cm. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
decumbent and ascending. |
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. |
(5–)6–17 cm; leaflets (13 or)15–21(or 23), blades usually obovate, broadly elliptic, or rhombic-ovate, rarely suborbiculate, (4–)6–25 mm, apex emarginate or retuse. |
Racemes | 10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)15–33-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3.5–)4–12 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
3–7(–9) 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. |
(13.2–)14.5–18 mm; calyx (5.3–)6.4–10.8 mm, tube (4.5–)4.8–7 mm, lobes (0.8–)1.6–3.8 mm; corolla pink-purple, sometimes pale. |
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. |
green or faintly mottled becoming stramineous or purplish, narrowly to broadly ovoid-acuminate or broadly lanceoloid-acuminate, slightly or greatly inflated, 12–22 × (4–)5–13(–15) mm, bilocular, thinly papery, usually glabrous, rarely sparsely pubescent; beak 4–8 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | (7–)16–25. |
18–22. |
2n | = 22. |
= 22. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. australis |
|
Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Feb–May. |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. | Open desert, sandy playas and outwash fans, plains, washes in foothills of desert mountains, with Larrea, Carnegiea gigantea, in yucca-grasslands. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) | 600–1300 m. (2000–4300 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
AZ; NM; TX; Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora) |
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.) |
Variety australis is common and abundant in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, grading into var. yuccanus to the north in Arizona. Eastward it extends to far western trans-Pecos Texas and becomes similar to var. diphysus. (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 | (Howell) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 86. (1945) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 117, plate 3, figs. 15–19. (1945) |
Web links |