Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
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freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch |
Fish Slough 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, to 100 cm. |
Stems | diffuse and ascending; ashy canescent or green. |
prostrate. |
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. |
2–5 cm; leaflets 3 or 5, blades linear-oblanceolate, 7–15 mm, terminal leaflet 14–30 mm, apex obtuse or subacute. |
Racemes | loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit. |
shortly 5–12-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 1.5–4 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–8(–9) cm. |
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. |
13 mm; calyx 7 mm, tube 4.5 mm, lobes 2.5 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, ovoid-acuminate, moderately inflated, 20–24 × 8–12 mm, stiffly papery, strigulose; beak incurved, 4.5–7 mm, bilocular. |
Seeds | 23–29. |
18. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. piscinensis |
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Phenology | Flowering (Feb–)Mar–Jun. | Flowering Jun–Jul. |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, desert playas, sometimes on dunes, usually with Larrea. | Saline seep, moist at least in springtime, growing with Ivesia, Juncus, and other herbs. |
Elevation | 100–1000(–2100) m. (300–3300(–6900) ft.) | 1200–1300 m. (3900–4300 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 piscinensis is known from Fish Slough northwest of Bishop in Mono County. It is similar in habit to vars. multiracemosus and sesquimetralis. (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: Brittonia 29: 378, fig. 2. (1977) |
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