Astragalus albens

Cushenbury milkvetch, Cushenbury Milkvetch, Cushenbury milk-vetch, Cushenbury milk-vetch

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1 · Endangered

Cushenbury milkvetch is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native perennial found in Cushenbury Canyon in the northeastern San Bernardino Mountains adjacent to the Mojave Desert at elevations of 1,200 to 1,900 meters in rocky areas. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces delicate pink-purple flowers with banner petals 7.3 to 9.5 millimeters long, recurved at about 40 degrees. Growing with loose-matted, prostrate stems 2 to 30 centimeters long, it is covered in dense, silvery, branched appressed hairs. Its leaves are 1 to 5.5 centimeters long with 5 to 9 leaflets, each 2 to 10 millimeters long, ovate to obovate with blunt, slightly notched tips. The fruit is a crescent-shaped, stiff-papery pod 10 to 18 millimeters long, densely covered in strigose hairs.

Habitat: Rocky areas

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 1200-1900 m

Bioregions: Cushenbury Canyon (ne SnBr, adjacent DMoj).

California counties: San Bernardino

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.