Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
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freckled milkvetch, Mount Trumbull milkvetch |
wahweap freckled milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 30–45(–65) cm, herbage green or subglabrescent. | Plants perennial (short-lived, sometimes flowering first year), 10–25(–35) cm. |
Stems | diffuse and incurved-ascending. |
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Leaves | 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. |
(2.5–)4–11 cm; leaflets 13–23, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, broadly oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, (3–)5–17(–20) mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely 4–15(–17)-flowered; axis elongating, 3–9.5 cm in fruit. |
10–20-flowered, flowering from middle and distally, compact to loose in fruit; axis 1.5–5.5(–7) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 4.5–7.5 cm. |
2.5–6(–7.5) cm. |
Flowers | 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. |
(12.5–)15–18.2 mm; calyx (6.2–)7.5–10.5 mm, tube (4.6–)5.2–6.7 mm, lobes 1.4–3.8 mm; corolla usually bright pink-purple with pale, striate eye, rarely white (concolorous). |
Legumes | 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. |
green, sometimes stramineous or purple-mottled, almost always very strongly incurved, very obliquely ovoid-acuminate, moderately or greatly inflated, 15–30(–40) × (7–)9–15 mm, bilocular, thinly papery, semitranslucent, seeds visible, to almost leathery, opaque, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, 6–15 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 14–28. |
(20–)24–28. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. trumbullensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr (Sep). | Flowering Apr–Jul. |
Habitat | Sandstone outcrops and gravel, with Agave, Ephedra, Mortonia, Purshia, and other warm-desert shrubs. | Pinyon-juniper, sagebrush, and mixed desert shrub communities. |
Elevation | 900–1800 m. (3000–5900 ft.) | 1400–1900 m. (4600–6200 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ |
AZ; UT |
Discussion | 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.) |
Variety wahweapensis may be very abundant in wetter years, filling the interspaces in pinyon-juniper woodland much like an alfalfa field. It is found on the plateaus and drainages affluent to Lake Powell in eastern Kane and Garfield counties in Utah, and in northern Arizona. Variety wahweapensis grades into the slender-podded var. palans to the east and the ovoid-fruited var. diphysus southward. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | S. L. Welsh & N. D. Atwood: Rhodora 103: 81, fig. 3. (2001) | S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 38: 286. (1978) |
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