Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. oropedii |
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wahweap freckled milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, Kaibab Plateau milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants perennial (short-lived, sometimes flowering first year), 10–25(–35) cm. | Plants perennial, (10–)20–80 cm. |
Stems | diffuse and incurved-ascending. |
decumbent or weakly ascending, flexuous or zigzag in age, glabrous or glabrate. |
Leaves | (2.5–)4–11 cm; leaflets 13–23, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, broadly oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, (3–)5–17(–20) mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. |
5–15 cm; leaflets 15–21(–25), blades broadly oblong-elliptic, ovate-oblong, or suborbiculate, 5–20(–25) mm, apex rounded, truncate, or retuse. |
Racemes | 10–20-flowered, flowering from middle and distally, compact to loose in fruit; axis 1.5–5.5(–7) cm in fruit. |
shortly (8–)10–25-flowered, compact in fruit; axis little elongating, 1.5–4(–5) cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | 2.5–6(–7.5) cm. |
(2–)3–10 cm. |
Flowers | (12.5–)15–18.2 mm; calyx (6.2–)7.5–10.5 mm, tube (4.6–)5.2–6.7 mm, lobes 1.4–3.8 mm; corolla usually bright pink-purple with pale, striate eye, rarely white (concolorous). |
(12.5–)13.2–20 mm; calyx 7.5–10.8 mm, tube (4.5–)5–7.5 mm, lobes (2.5–)3–5 mm; corolla purple or pale pink-purple. |
Legumes | green, sometimes stramineous or purple-mottled, almost always very strongly incurved, very obliquely ovoid-acuminate, moderately or greatly inflated, 15–30(–40) × (7–)9–15 mm, bilocular, thinly papery, semitranslucent, seeds visible, to almost leathery, opaque, usually glabrous, rarely puberulent; beak well-defined, triangular or deltoid, 6–15 mm, unilocular. |
mottled, obliquely ovoid or semi-ovoid, ± strongly inflated, 13–25(–30) × 6.5–14 mm, ± bilocular, stiffly papery, glabrous; beak 5–8 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | (20–)24–28. |
20–33. |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. wahweapensis |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. oropedii |
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Phenology | Flowering Apr–Jul. | Flowering Jun–Sep. |
Habitat | Pinyon-juniper, sagebrush, and mixed desert shrub communities. | Openings in ponderosa pine forests. |
Elevation | 1400–1900 m. (4600–6200 ft.) | 2100–2500 m. (6900–8200 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ; UT |
AZ |
Discussion | Variety wahweapensis may be very abundant in wetter years, filling the interspaces in pinyon-juniper woodland much like an alfalfa field. It is found on the plateaus and drainages affluent to Lake Powell in eastern Kane and Garfield counties in Utah, and in northern Arizona. Variety wahweapensis grades into the slender-podded var. palans to the east and the ovoid-fruited var. diphysus southward. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety oropedii is locally common but apparently confined to the Kaibab Plateau, especially the North Rim and upper levels of the northern wall of the Grand Canyon in Coconino County. Specimens with thin-textured, subdiaphanous fruits that occur within or near known localities of var. oropedii have been tentatively placed with var. vitreus. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | S. L. Welsh: Great Basin Naturalist 38: 286. (1978) | Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 135. (1945) |
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