Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. toyabensis |
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harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
toyabe milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. | Plants perennial, 10–30 cm. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
usually ascending, rarely 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. |
3–13(–16) cm; leaflets (7–)15–25, blades oval-obovate, broadly oblanceolate, or narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate, (2–)6–16(–21)mm, apex obtuse and apiculate, truncate, acute, 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. |
7–18-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–2.5(–5) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
1.5–4.5(–6.5) 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. |
12.6–17 mm; calyx (6.2–)6.7–10 mm, tube 5–6.5 mm, lobes (1.2–)1.6–3.5(–4) mm; corolla usually pink-purple, rarely whitish. |
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. |
usually mottled becoming stramineous, narrowly to broadly ovoid-acuminate, ± strongly inflated, 8–20 × 4–11 mm, thinly papery, glabrous or exceptionally puberulent; beak triangular-acuminate, (3–)4–11 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | (7–)16–25. |
13–20. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. toyabensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Jun–Aug. |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. | Dry, stony hillsides with sagebrush, open, treeless crests within timber belt, rarely above timber belt, on cool, loamy soils among aspens, on igneous bedrock. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) | (1800–)2400–3500 m. ((5900–)7900–11500 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
NV |
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.) |
Usually a montane plant of central and west-central Nevada, var. toyabensis sometimes descends into the foothills as low as 1830 m, where it enters the habitat of, and apparently grades into, var. chartaceus, a form that differs typically in its leathery or at least much more stiffly papery fruit (R. C. Barneby 1964). (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: 106, plate 3, figs. 1–4. (1945) |
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