Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
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harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
Fish Slough milk vetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. | Plants perennial, to 100 cm. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
prostrate. |
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 cm; leaflets 3 or 5, blades linear-oblanceolate, 7–15 mm, terminal leaflet 14–30 mm, apex obtuse or subacute. |
Racemes | 10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
shortly 5–12-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
2–5.5 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. |
13 mm; calyx 7 mm, tube 4.5 mm, lobes 2.5 mm; corolla purple. |
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. |
mottled, ovoid-acuminate, moderately inflated, 20–24 × 8–12 mm, stiffly papery, strigulose; beak incurved, 4.5–7 mm, bilocular. |
Seeds | (7–)16–25. |
18. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Jun–Jul. |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. | Saline seep, moist at least in springtime, growing with Ivesia, Juncus, and other herbs. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) | 1200–1300 m. (3900–4300 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
CA |
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 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.) |
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: Brittonia 29: 378, fig. 2. (1977) |
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