Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
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harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, Mount Trumbull milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 6–30(–45) cm. | Plants perennial, 30–45(–65) cm, herbage green or subglabrescent. |
Stems | ascending to erect, mostly unbranched. |
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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. |
2–9.5(–10.5) cm; leaflets (7–)13–17, blades broadly obovate to oblanceolate or elliptic, 5–15 mm, apex retuse to round or subacute, adaxial surface usually strigose to strigulose, sometimes glabrate or glabrous. |
Racemes | 10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit. |
loosely 4–15(–17)-flowered; axis elongating, 3–9.5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2–4.5(–5) cm. |
4.5–7.5 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. |
13–17 mm; calyx 6.3–7.4 mm, tube 4.8–5.5 mm, lobes 1.7–2 mm; corolla pink- or red-purple, sometimes with pale or white wing 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. |
evidently persistent, stramineous or mottled, linear-oblong to oblong or narrowly ellipsoid, not or scarcely inflated, 17–32 × 4–5.5(–7.5) mm, ± bilocular, somewhat fleshy becoming leathery or stiffly papery, strigulose; beak 3–5 mm, unilocular; stipe 0.1–1 mm. |
Seeds | (7–)16–25. |
14–28. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Apr (Sep). |
Habitat | Saline flats and playas upward to mountain slopes in sagebrush, oak, and other montane communities. | Sandstone outcrops and gravel, with Agave, Ephedra, Mortonia, Purshia, and other warm-desert shrubs. |
Elevation | 700–2600 m. (2300–8500 ft.) | 900–1800 m. (3000–5900 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; ID; MT; NV; OR; UT; WY; BC |
AZ |
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 trumbullensis is restricted to Mohave County. It is closely related to vars. mokiacensis and palans, weakly differentiated by a series of features that intergrade insensibly but taken in combination are more or less diagnostic (as is true for most members of the lentiginosus complex). J. A. Alexander (2005) provided statistical evidence that this variety is indistinguishable from var. mokiacensis (as Astragalus mokiacensis), and he considered the two synonymous. (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: Rhodora 103: 81, fig. 3. (2001) |
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