Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis
Astragalus sect. Diphysi
freckled milk vetch, victorville freckled milkvetch
diffuse and ascending;
ashy canescent or green.
single or few to many.
(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.
odd-pinnate, petiolate to subsessile;
leaflets (3–)7–27(or 29).
loosely (10–)12–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit;
axis (3–)4–15(–17) cm in fruit.
loosely or remotely flowered or subumbellate, flowers ascending to spreading or declined.
3–8(–9) cm.
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.
usually white, lilac, purple, or pink- to magenta-purple, lavender, or violet, sometimes ochroleucous or yellowish, keel apex usually purple, banner recurved through 30–50°, keel apex round, obtuse, or bluntly deltate.
tubes cylindric or campanulate.
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.
usually deciduous, sometimes persistent, usually sessile, rarely short-stipitate, ascending, spreading, deflexed, or declined, linear, narrowly lanceoloid to oblanceoloid or ellipsoid, oblong, ovoid to obovoid, subglobose, or triangular-obcordate, ventral suture deeply grooved and appearing ± didymous, strongly inflated, terete, dorsiventrally compressed, or 3-sided compressed, straight or curved, usually bilocular, sometimes semibilocular or unilocular.
23–29.
(7–)10–42.
basifixed.
distinct.
= 22.
Astragalus lentiginosus var. variabilis
Astragalus sect. Diphysi
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.)
Species 3 (3 in the flora).
Section Diphysi has wide distribution in western North America, from British Columbia southward to northwestern Mexico. One of the species, Astragalus lentiginosus, consists of 42 varieties and is as complex an assemblage as occurs in many genera.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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