Astragalus lentiginosus var. yuccanus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. stramineus |
|
---|---|---|
yucca freckled milkvetch, yucca milkvetch |
freckled milkvetch, straw milkvetch |
|
Habit | Plants winter-annual or short-lived perennial, clump-forming, 15–60(–100) cm. | Plants perennial (short-lived), 12–40(–65) cm, herbage cinereous or green. |
Stems | erect and ascending. |
ashy canescent or green. |
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. |
(2.5–)4–11(–13) cm; leaflets (9 or)11–15, blades broadly oblanceolate or obovate-cuneate, (3–)5–18 mm, apex openly notched. |
Racemes | loosely (12–)15–32-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis early elongating, (4.5–)6–14 cm in fruit. |
loosely or remotely 15–25(–30)-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis 5–18 cm in fruit. |
Peduncles | (3–)5–10 cm. |
3.5–9 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. |
11–12 mm; calyx 5–6.6 mm, tube 3.8–4.5 mm, lobes 1.2–2.1 mm; corolla pale purple. |
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. |
greenish, usually mottled, becoming stramineous, obliquely ovoid-acuminate, bladdery-inflated, (10–)17–26 × 10–16 mm, bilocular, somewhat stiffly papery, opaque, strigulose; beak (2–)3–7 mm, unilocular. |
Seeds | 17–26. |
20–26. |
2n | = 22. |
|
Astragalus lentiginosus var. yuccanus |
Astragalus lentiginosus var. stramineus |
|
Phenology | Flowering Feb–May. | Flowering Apr–May. |
Habitat | Open sandy plains, sandy or rocky washes, gulches in foothills of desert mountains, with Larrea and in yucca-grasslands. | Mixed warm-desert shrub communities. |
Elevation | 500–1100 m. (1600–3600 ft.) | 900–1000 m. (3000–3300 ft.) |
Distribution |
AZ; NV |
AZ; NV; UT |
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 stramineus is the only member of the species with moderate-sized, pale purple flowers known to occur in Washington County in Utah, and adjacent Arizona and Nevada; it is similar to the slightly smaller-flowered var. fremontii and to var. ambiguus. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 11. | FNA vol. 11. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Cystium stramineum | |
Name authority | M. E. Jones: Contr. W. Bot. 8: 3. (1898) | (Rydberg) Barneby: Leafl. W. Bot. 4: 122. (1945) |
Web links |