Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis
harney milkvetch, sagebrush milk vetch, salty freckled milkvetch, salty loco milkvetch
freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch
ascending to erect, mostly unbranched.
diffuse and ascending;
ashy canescent or green.
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–)4–13 cm;
leaflets (7–)11–21(–25), blades obovate-cuneate to broadly oblanceolate or rhombic-elliptic, 4–15(–17) mm, apex usually obtuse or emarginate, rarely acute or subacute.
10–25-flowered, floriferous from middle to distalmost nodes, short and compact in fruit;
axis 1.5–4(–9) cm in fruit.
loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit;
axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit.
2–4.5(–5) cm.
3–8(–9) cm.
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.
11.1–15 mm;
calyx 4.7–6.5 mm, tube 3.7–5.2 mm, lobes 1–1.4(–1.5) mm, adaxial pair usually shortest;
corolla pink- or magenta-purple.
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.
pale green or mottled becoming stramineous, obliquely ovoid or subglobose, bladdery-inflated, (12–)15–27(–30) × 8–14(–15) mm, bilocular, stiffly papery, opaque, sparsely strigulose to densely and canescently strigose-villosulous;
beak (3–)4–9 mm, unilocular.
(7–)16–25.
23–29.
= 22.
= 22.
Astragalus lentiginosus var. salinus
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis
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 variabilis is common and locally abundant in the southern and southwestern Mojave Desert, replacing var. fremontii, which is usually found to the north and east. Vestiture varies from ashy white to greenish. To the north in southern Inyo County, California, it intergrades with var. fremontii to the point that differentiation of the varieties is subjective. At low elevations in the central Mojave Desert it grades into var. coachellae. It also occurs on the floor of the upper San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California, where it closely resembles var. nigricalycis except for the purple flowers. White-canescent plants of this variety also occur in Nye County in Nevada, west of Beatty. R. C. Barneby (1964) discussed intergradient populations more thoroughly.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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