Astragalus lentiginosus var. sesquimetralis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
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soda springs milkvetch, Sodaville milk vetch |
freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, to 70–80 cm. | Plants usually short-lived perennial, sometimes annual, (4–)10–40 cm, herbage usually cinereous, sometimes green or silky-canescent. |
Stems | prostrate. |
diffuse and ascending; ashy canescent or green. |
Leaves | 2–5 cm; leaflets 9–15(or 17), blades oblanceolate, 6–18 mm, terminal leaflet 7–15 mm, apex obtuse or subacute. |
(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 | shortly and loosely 6–12-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1–2 cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 1.5–4 cm. |
3–8(–9) cm. |
Flowers | 14–14.5 mm; calyx 7–8 mm, tube 4.8–5.5 mm, lobes 2.2–2.5 mm; corolla purple. |
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 or broadly lanceoloid, moderately inflated, 16–26 × 9–12 mm, semibilocular, stiffly papery, strigulose; beak incurved, 4–8 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 | 12–20. |
23–29. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. sesquimetralis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
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Phenology | Flowering May–Jun. | Flowering (Feb–)Mar–Jun. |
Habitat | Saline, seasonally moist clay flats, around seeps and springs. | Sandy flats, washes, desert playas, sometimes on dunes, usually with Larrea. |
Elevation | 900–1400 m. (3000–4600 ft.) | 100–1000(–2100) m. (300–3300(–6900) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; NV |
CA; NV |
Discussion | The branches of var. sesquimetralis radiate, forming large, round plants that hug the ground. This habit, coupled with a long season of available water, is evidently conducive to long-continuing flowering and fruiting but is not necessarily an indication of a near relationship to other taxa that are similar (see discussion under 285c. var. multiracemosus). The variety is restricted to southern Mineral County, Nevada, and northern Inyo County, California. (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 | ||
Synonyms | Cystium sesquimetrale | |
Name authority | (Rydberg) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 116. (1945) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 123, plate 4, figs. 1–8. (1945) |
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