Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. vitreus |
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freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, glass freckled milkvetch |
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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, 15–40 cm. |
Stems | diffuse and ascending; ashy canescent or green. |
glabrous or glabrate. |
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. |
4.5–10 cm; leaflets (7–)13–19, blades obovate-cuneate or oblong-obovate, (5–)7–17(–21) mm, apex obtuse or truncate-emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit. |
loosely (10–)15–27-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis 4–8.5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 3–8(–9) cm. |
4–9.5 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. |
13.2–17 mm; calyx 6.5–8 mm, tube 4.6–5.7 mm, lobes (1.5–)1.7–2.3 mm; corolla pink-purple or lavender with white wing tips. |
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. |
pale green and unmottled turning pallid, usually broadly ovoid, rarely lunately lanceoloid-acuminate, usually strongly inflated, rarely less so, 15–25 × (7–)9–15 mm, papery-membranous, subtranslucent, lustrous, glabrous; beak triangular, short, unilocular. |
Seeds | 23–29. |
21–31. |
2n | = 22. |
= 22. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. vitreus |
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Phenology | Flowering (Feb–)Mar–Jun. | Flowering Apr–Jun. |
Habitat | Sandy flats, washes, desert playas, sometimes on dunes, usually with Larrea. | Gullied badlands and desert flats, on sand or clay derived from sandstone or limestone, on volcanic gravel. |
Elevation | 100–1000(–2100) m. (300–3300(–6900) ft.) | 800–1500(–2000) m. (2600–4900(–6600) ft.) |
Distribution |
CA; NV |
AZ; UT |
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 vitreus is found in the valleys of the upper Virgin River and Kanab Creek, southward to the northern slope of the Kaibab Plateau, and Toroweap and House Rock valleys in eastern Washington and western Kane counties in Utah, and northern Mohave and northwestern Coconino counties in Arizona. (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: 119, plate 3, figs. 30–33. (1945) |
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