Flora of North America species comparison

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Peteria thompsoniae

spine noded milk vetch, Thompson's peteria
Habit Herbs to 1 m. Leaves (5.5–)7–15.5 cm; stipules subulate, 4–6 × 1 mm; leaflets (9–)15–31, blades usually broadly elliptic to orbiculate, rarely narrowly elliptic, (6–)12–21 × (4–)7–13 mm, apex rounded, surfaces glabrate to sericeous.
Racemes

congested, usually with more than 2 consecutive flowers reaching anthesis simultaneously, nodes often 20–100+, internodes 1–5(–12) mm;

bracts 5–11 × 0.5–1 mm.
Pedicels

2–3 mm.
Flowers

calyx tube (6–)7–11 mm, strigose to sericeous, lobes 7–11 mm;

banner 16–22 mm.
Fruits

40–65 × 6–7 mm.
2n

= 16, 18.

Peteria thompsoniae
Phenology Flowering early summer.
Habitat Open, dry shrubby vegeta­tion.
Elevation 800–1800 m. (2600–5900 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; ID; NV; UT
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Peteria thompsoniae is found in the northeastern Mojave Desert, western Colorado Plateau, Great Basin Desert, and southeastern Columbia Plateau.

Populations of Peteria thompsoniae in northern Arizona (Mohave County) are distinctive in having a longer flowering season (end of April through August), leaflets usually more numerous (25–31), and leaflet surfaces consistently more glabrate and bearing more scattered tannin deposits than in populations from elsewhere. The flowers in these populations have a generally smaller calyx tube (6–7 mm) and a greater number of ovules per ovary (10–12). Populations from southern Utah (Kane and Washington counties) have leaves similar to those of the Arizona populations in that they tend to be more distinctly marked with finely scattered tannin deposits and have glabrate to sparsely strigose surfaces, but leaflet number per leaf is not as consistently high as in the Arizona populations. Populations from eastern Utah (Emery, San Juan, and Wayne counties) are distinct in having narrowly elliptic leaflets with at least adaxial surfaces glabrate (M. Lavin and M. Sousa S. 1995).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Peteria
Sibling taxa
P. scoparia
Synonyms P. nevadensis
Name authority S. Watson: Amer. Naturalist 7: 300. (1873) — (as thompsonae)
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Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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