Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. negundo |
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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. | Plants perennial, 19–32 cm. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
diffuse and incurved-ascending, often red- or purple-tinged. |
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. |
(2.5–)4–11 cm; leaflets (7–)13–19, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, broadly oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, (2–)5–17 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | 10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
5–11-flowered, flowering from middle and distally, short and compact in fruit; axis 0.5–5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
2.2–5 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. |
12.5–14.5 mm; calyx 7.5–10.2 mm, tube 5.2–5.8 mm, lobes 1.8–4.4 mm; corolla bright pink-purple with pale, striate eye. |
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. |
purplish, often red-mottled, becoming stramineous, ellipsoid to lanceoloid-ovoid or ellipsoid-acuminate, moderately inflated, 23–34 × 6–15 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery or almost leathery, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, 7–12 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | (7–)16–25. |
40. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. negundo |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering late Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. | Salt and sand desert shrub communities with shadscale, greasewood, sagebrush, and horsebrush, in pinyon-juniper communities. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) | 1400–1700(–2300) m. (4600–5600(–7500) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
UT |
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 negundo, which is known from Box Elder, Millard, and Tooele counties, fills a portion of the gap in distribution between var. platyphyllidius, with which it shares relatively thick-textured fruits, and var. chartaceus, with which it is transitional to the south. From either taxon, the elongated fruit is evidently diagnostic, apparent only as fruits approach maturity. The lower flower number is characteristic of var. negundo and is more or less diagnostic. (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) | S. L. Welsh & N. D. Atwood in S. L. Welsh: N. Amer. Sp. Astragalus, 302, fig. 285u. (2007) |
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