Astragalus lentiginosus var. yuccanus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. ineptus |
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yucca freckled milkvetch, yucca milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, fumbling milk vetch, homely milkvetch |
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Habit | Plants winter-annual or short-lived perennial, clump-forming, 15–60(–100) cm. | Plants perennial, (1–)3–30 cm, herbage loosely strigulose or villosulous. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
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Leaves | (5–)7–16 cm; leaflets 13–21(–25), blades broadly elliptic, oval, rhombic-obovate, or obovate, (4–)6–21 mm, apex retuse or emarginate. |
1.5–5.5 cm; leaflets (9–)15–21, crowded, blades obovate or oblanceolate, (1–)2–10 mm, apex obtuse or retuse. |
Racemes | loosely (12–)15–32-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis early elongating, (4.5–)6–14 cm in fruit. |
(4–)10–21-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis (0.3–)1–2.5 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | (3–)5–10 cm. |
0.5–2 cm. |
Flowers | 11–15.6 mm; calyx 6–7.5 mm, tube 4.4–5.7 mm, lobes (1.3–)1.5–2.4 mm; corolla white or ochroleucous, concolorous, sometimes fading pale bluish, petals poorly graduated, banner slightly longer than wings, wings and keel nearly equal length. |
(8.8–)9.8–12 mm; calyx (4.8–)5.4–7.3 mm, tube (3.6–)3.9–4.9 mm, lobes (1–)1.2–2.4 mm; corolla whitish or cream, sometimes with pink tips. |
Legumes | stramineous, plumply ovoid-acuminate or subglobose, strongly inflated, 15–25(–32) × 10–18 mm, bilocular, papery-membranous, subtranslucent, usually glabrous, rarely minutely strigulose; beak 3–7 mm, unilocular. |
usually faintly mottled becoming stramineous, plumply ovoid- or ellipsoid-acuminate, strongly inflated, 10–18 × (5–)6–12 mm, thinly papery, strigulose or, sometimes, glabrous; beak erect or incurved, deltoid, 3–5 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 17–26. |
(12–)14–19. |
2n | = 22. |
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Astragalus lentiginosus var. yuccanus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. ineptus |
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Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering Jun–Aug. |
Habitat | Open sandy plains, sandy or rocky washes, gulches in foothills of desert mountains, with Larrea and in yucca-grasslands. | Gravelly slopes, ridges, and talus, on coarse granitic sand or volcanic tuff, in bristlecone pine and alpine tundra communities. |
Elevation | 500–1100 m. (1600–3600 ft.) | 1800–3700 m. (5900–12100 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ; NV |
CA |
Discussion | Variety yuccanus occurs in west-central Arizona, barely entering Nevada in the southern tip of Clark County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Variety ineptus occurs along the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada from Alpine County southward to the Inconsolable Range, Inyo County, Sweetwater Mountains, Mono County, and Bonita Meadows, Tulare County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | A. ineptus | |
Name authority | M. E. Jones: Contr. W. Bot. 8: 3. (1898) | (A. Gray) M. E. Jones: Rev. N.-Amer. Astragalus, 124. (1923) |
Web links |