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freckled milkvetch, White Mountains milk vetch

Habit Plants perennial, 5–10(–20) cm, herbage subappressed-strigulose. Herbs annual, biennial, or perennial, caulescent or subacaulescent; caudex superficial or subterranean.
Stems

single or few to many.

Leaves

4–9 cm;

leaflets (13–)17–27, distant, blades oblanceolate, oblong-oval, or oblong-elliptic, 2–9 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate.

odd-pinnate, petiolate to subsessile;

leaflets (3–)7–27(or 29).

Racemes

6–10-flowered, short and compact in fruit;

axis 1–3 cm in fruit.

loosely or remotely flowered or subumbellate, flowers ascending to spreading or declined.

Peduncles

0.6–1.5 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.

Corollas

usually white, lilac, purple, or pink- to magenta-purple, lavender, or violet, sometimes ochroleucous or yellowish, keel apex usually purple, banner recurved through 30–50°, keel apex round, obtuse, or bluntly deltate.

Calyx

tubes cylindric or campanulate.

Legumes

mottled, ovoid-acuminate, bladdery-inflated, 11–20(–23) × 6–12 mm, papery, sparsely strigulose;

beak incurved, deltoid, 4–7 mm, unilocular.

usually deciduous, sometimes persistent, usually sessile, rarely short-stipitate, ascending, spreading, deflexed, or declined, linear, narrowly lanceoloid to oblanceoloid or ellipsoid, oblong, ovoid to obovoid, subglobose, or triangular-obcordate, ventral suture deeply grooved and appearing ± didymous, strongly inflated, terete, dorsiventrally compressed, or 3-sided compressed, straight or curved, usually bilocular, sometimes semibilocular or unilocular.

Seeds

13–15.

(7–)10–42.

Hairs

basifixed.

Stipules

distinct.

2n

= 22.

Astragalus lentiginosus var. semotus

Astragalus sect. Diphysi

Phenology Flowering Jun–Aug.
Habitat Among sagebrush, with bristle­cone pine.
Elevation 2100–3500 m. (6900–11500 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; NV
[BONAP county map]
w North America; nw Mexico
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.)

Species 3 (3 in the flora).

Section Diphysi has wide distribution in western North America, from British Columbia southward to northwestern Mexico. One of the species, Astragalus lentiginosus, consists of 42 varieties and is as complex an assemblage as occurs in many genera.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus > sect. Diphysi > Astragalus lentiginosus Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Astragalus
Sibling taxa
A. lentiginosus var. albifolius, A. lentiginosus var. ambiguus, A. lentiginosus var. antonius, A. lentiginosus var. australis, A. lentiginosus var. chartaceus, A. lentiginosus var. coachellae, A. lentiginosus var. coulteri, A. lentiginosus var. diphysus, A. lentiginosus var. floribundus, A. lentiginosus var. fremontii, A. lentiginosus var. higginsii, A. lentiginosus var. idriensis, A. lentiginosus var. ineptus, A. lentiginosus var. kennedyi, A. lentiginosus var. kernensis, A. lentiginosus var. latus, A. lentiginosus var. lentiginosus, A. lentiginosus var. macrolobus, A. lentiginosus var. maricopae, A. lentiginosus var. micans, A. lentiginosus var. mokiacensis, A. lentiginosus var. multiracemosus, A. lentiginosus var. negundo, A. lentiginosus var. nigricalycis, A. lentiginosus var. oropedii, A. lentiginosus var. palans, A. lentiginosus var. piscinensis, A. lentiginosus var. platyphyllidius, A. lentiginosus var. pohlii, A. lentiginosus var. salinus, A. lentiginosus var. scorpionis, A. lentiginosus var. sesquimetralis, A. lentiginosus var. sierrae, A. lentiginosus var. stramineus, A. lentiginosus var. toyabensis, A. lentiginosus var. trumbullensis, A. lentiginosus var. variabilis, A. lentiginosus var. vitreus, A. lentiginosus var. wahweapensis, A. lentiginosus var. wilsonii, A. lentiginosus var. yuccanus
Subordinate taxa
Name authority Jepson: Fl. Calif. 2: 357. (1936) A. Gray: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 6: 192. (1864)
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