Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. antonius |
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freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, Mount San Antonio milkvetch, San Antonio milk vetch |
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Habit | Plants usually short-lived perennial, sometimes annual, (4–)10–40 cm, herbage usually cinereous, sometimes green or silky-canescent. | Plants perennial, 7–30 cm, herbage cinereous or silvery-canescent. |
Stems | diffuse and ascending; ashy canescent or green. |
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Leaves | (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. |
3–8 cm; leaflets 11–19(or 21), blades obovate or elliptic, 2.5–11 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit. |
10–15-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 0.5–4(–5) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–8(–9) cm. |
(1–)2–5.5 cm. |
Flowers | 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. |
9–10.5 mm; calyx 4.2–5.5 mm, tube 3.2–4 mm, lobes 0.8–1.4 mm; corolla purple. |
Legumes | 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. |
mottled becoming stramineous, plumply ovoid-acuminate or subglobose, bladdery-inflated, 14–22(–30) × 10–16(–18) mm, papery, strigulose; beak erect, triangular, 3–6 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 23–29. |
20–26. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. antonius |
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Phenology | Flowering (Feb–)Mar–Jun. | Flowering late Apr–Jul. |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, desert playas, sometimes on dunes, usually with Larrea. | Ponderosa pine forests. |
Elevation | 100–1000(–2100) m. (300–3300(–6900) ft.) | 1500–2600 m. (4900–8500 ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; NV |
CA |
Discussion | 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.) |
Variety antonius, from the eastern end of the San Gabriel Mountains in eastern Los Angeles and adjacent San Bernardino counties, is the homologue of var. sierrae, from which it differs by its much denser pubescence and mostly flat leaflets (D. Isely 1998). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 123, plate 4, figs. 1–8. (1945) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 100, plate 2, figs. 7–9. (1945) |
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