Astragalus lentiginosus var. Kennedyi

Biennial or perennial but of short duration, rather coarse, villosulous nearly throughout with fine, curly and incumbent and also often some longer, straightish, ascending hairs up to 0.5-0.75 (1) mm. long, the stems commonly canescent or when young tomentulose, the herbage green or canescent, the leaflets nearly always pubescent on both sides, rarely glabrescent or subglabrous above; stems decumbent and ascending, (1) 1.5-4 (5) dm. long; leaves 4.5-12 (15) cm. long, with (9) 15-21 (23) obovate-cuneate to broadly oblong-oblanceolate, obtuse or (in some leaves) emarginate or retuse, flat or loosely folded leaflets (5) 7—20 mm. long; peduncles stout, erect, (3) 4.5-7.5 cm. long; racemes loosely (10) 15-35-flow- ered, the axis (3.5) 5-12 cm. long in fruit; calyx 6.1-8.8 mm. long, black or largely white-villosulous, the tube 4.1—5.7 mm. long, 2.4—3.3 mm. in diameter, the teeth 1.6-3.1 mm. long, usually arched outward; petals bright purple; banner (11.8) 12.5-17 mm. long, 6-9.2 mm. wide; wings (10.6) 11.6-14.6 mm., the claws 4.2-6.3 mm., the blades 6.9-9.3 mm. long, 1.4-3 (3.7) mm. wide; keel (8.4) 9.4-13.4 mm., the claws (4.1) 4.5-6 (6.4) mm., the blades (4.7) 5.5-7.6 mm. long, 2.3—3.4 mm. wide; pod narrowly, more rarely plumply ovoid-acuminate, (2) 2.5-3 cm. long, the bladdery-inflated body 0.9-1.5 cm. in diameter, tapering or abruptly contracted into a more or less incurved, unilocular beak 5—9 mm. long, the pale green, glabrous or exceptionally puberulent valves becoming papery-membranous, lustrously stramineous; ovules (24) 26—36.—Collections: 31 (iii); representative: Maguire & Holmgren 25,505 (NY, RSA, WS), 25,512, 25,457 (NY, RSA); A. Heller 10,915 (F, GH, NY, UC); Archer 6195 (NA, NY); Eastwood & Howell 81 (CAS).Alkaline dunes, sandy valleys, and dry stony knolls, sometimes in volcanic gravel or cinders, 3700-5600 feet, locally plentiful about the low, arid basins of westcentral Nevada, from Pyramid Lake south to the latitude of Tonopah, Washoe to northern Nye and Esmeralda Counties.—Map No. 130.—April to June, sometimes again in September and October.

Astragalus lentiginosus var. Kennedyi (Rydb.) Barneby in Leafl. West. Bot. 4: 121, Pl. Ill, figs. 20-25. 1945, based on Cystium Kennedyi (Patrick Beveridge Kennedy, 1874—1930) Rydb. in N. Amer. Fl. 24 : 407. 1929.—"Type collected in the Carson Sink Region, October, Kennedy 1691 ... "—Holotypus, NY! isotypi, UC, US!

Kennedy’s freckled milk-vetch is usually distinctive and well marked by its villosulous vesture, relatively large, loosely racemose, purple flowers, spreading calyx-teeth, and glabrous pod commonly but not consistently of rather narrowly ovate-acuminate outline. Toward its south limit in Esmeralda County the flowers become smaller and the pod puberulent, and the individual facies of var. Kennedyi fades imperceptibly into that of var. Fremontii. In my revision (1945, l.c.) var. Kennedyi was reported from Nye County on the basis of two collections. The first of these (Eastwood & Howell 9482) is a small-flowered variant of var. Kennedyi but came from west of Tonopah, in Esmeralda County. The second (Ripley & Barneby 4427), although resembling var. Kennedyi in habit of growth, is distinguished by its scanty, nearly straight pubescence, and is perhaps better interpreted as a glabrous-fruiting, rather lax-racemed form of var. araneosus, at this point at the southwest limit of its range where intergradation with var. Kennedyi might be expected. Typical material of Kennedy’s freckled milk-vetch has since been collected in northwestern Nye County.