Astragalus casei

Case's milkvetch

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Case's milkvetch is a California native perennial found in the southern eastern desert mountains and desert mountains of Inyo County in dry, gravelly soils with sagebrush or pinyon woodland at elevations of 1,200 to 2,400 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces delicate pink-purple flowers with white wing and keel tips, with a recurved banner 12 to 18 millimeters long. Growing with slender, widely branched stems 10 to 40 centimeters tall that often zigzag and are minutely hairy, it has an open, wiry structure. Its leaves are complex, with 5 to 15 linear to oblanceolate leaflets 3 to 25 millimeters long, typically with obtuse or notched tips. The fruit is a distinctive sharply pendent pod 20 to 55 millimeters long, slightly curved and wider than deep, with a sharp rigid beak.

Habitat: Dry, gravelly soils or dunes, with sagebrush or pinyon

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 1200-2400 m

Bioregions: SNE, DMtns (Inyo Co.)

California counties: Inyo, Mono, 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.