Astragalus lentiginosus var. vitreus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. kernensis |
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freckled milkvetch, glass freckled milkvetch |
Kern milkvetch, Kern Plateau milk vetch, Kern River milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 15–40 cm. | Plants perennial, 2.5–12 cm. |
Stems | glabrous or glabrate. |
prostrate or decumbent. |
Leaves | 4.5–10 cm; leaflets (7–)13–19, blades obovate-cuneate or oblong-obovate, (5–)7–17(–21) mm, apex obtuse or truncate-emarginate. |
1–5 cm; leaflets (7–)11–19, mostly conduplicate, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, oval, or obovate, 1.5–7 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
Racemes | loosely (10–)15–27-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis 4–8.5 cm in fruit. |
shortly and loosely (2 or)3–9-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 0.3–1.5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 4–9.5 cm. |
0.6–2.5 cm. |
Flowers | 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. |
9.3–11.3 mm; calyx 4.1–5.3 mm, tube 3.5–4.6 mm, lobes 0.6–1.2 mm; corolla whitish or suffused purplish. |
Legumes | 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. |
in loose or compact, humistrate clusters, pale green or stramineous, purple-mottled, becoming brownish, globose or very broadly and plumply ovoid or obovoid, bladdery-inflated, 6–13 × 6–10 mm, papery, subtranslucent, sparsely and loosely strigulose; beak linear- or subulate-tubular, cusplike, bilocular. |
Seeds | 21–31. |
(7–)10–18. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. vitreus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. kernensis |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jun. | Flowering Jun–Jul. |
Habitat | Gullied badlands and desert flats, on sand or clay derived from sandstone or limestone, on volcanic gravel. | Dry, gravelly or sandy slopes and flats, with sagebrush, in lodgepole pine forests on granite, with bristlecone pine, on limestone. |
Elevation | 800–1500(–2000) m. (2600–4900(–6600) ft.) | (1900–)2300–3100 m. ((6200–)7500–10200 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ; UT |
CA; NV |
Discussion | 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.) |
The relatively small fruit size of var. kernensis coupled with a narrow, tubular beak resembling a persistent style are the main features of this delicate, montane plant. It is locally plentiful in two widely separate and restricted areas: the Kern Plateau just west of the Sierra Nevada crest in Tulare County, California, and about the summit of Charleston Peak in Clark County, Nevada. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. kernensis | |
Name authority | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 119, plate 3, figs. 30–33. (1945) | (Jepson) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 102. (1945) |
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