Astragalus lentiginosus var. semotus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
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freckled milkvetch, White Mountains milk vetch |
freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 5–10(–20) cm, herbage subappressed-strigulose. | Plants usually short-lived perennial, sometimes annual, (4–)10–40 cm, herbage usually cinereous, sometimes green or silky-canescent. |
Stems | diffuse and ascending; ashy canescent or green. |
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Leaves | 4–9 cm; leaflets (13–)17–27, distant, blades oblanceolate, oblong-oval, or oblong-elliptic, 2–9 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
(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. |
Racemes | 6–10-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–3 cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 0.6–1.5 cm. |
3–8(–9) cm. |
Flowers | 10.4–12 mm; calyx 5.2–7.3 mm, tube 3.6–5 mm, lobes 1.5–2.6 mm; corolla whitish. |
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. |
Legumes | mottled, ovoid-acuminate, bladdery-inflated, 11–20(–23) × 6–12 mm, papery, sparsely strigulose; beak incurved, deltoid, 4–7 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. |
Seeds | 13–15. |
23–29. |
2n | = 22. |
= 22. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. semotus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Aug. | Flowering (Feb–)Mar–Jun. |
Habitat | Among sagebrush, with bristlecone pine. | Sandy flats, washes, desert playas, sometimes on dunes, usually with Larrea. |
Elevation | 2100–3500 m. (6900–11500 ft.) | 100–1000(–2100) m. (300–3300(–6900) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; NV |
CA; NV |
Discussion | Variety semotus, similar to var. ineptus, occurs in the Inyo and White mountains in Inyo and Mono counties, California, and Esmeralda County, Nevada. (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.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Jepson: Fl. Calif. 2: 357. (1936) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 123, plate 4, figs. 1–8. (1945) |
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