Astragalus nutans

Providence mountains milkvetch, Providence Mountains Milkvetch

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Providence mountains milkvetch is a rare (CNPS 4.3) California native perennial found in southeastern Mojave Desert Mountains and Desert Southern California in sandy flats and washes of desert foothills at elevations of 450 to 2,000 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces pink-purple flowers with paler wing tips, the banner recurving almost 90 degrees and measuring 7.8 to 10.4 millimeters long. Growing with prostrate to erect stems 6 to 15 centimeters tall and minutely strigose throughout, it develops a delicate herbage with subtle texture. Its compound leaves feature 7 to 13 leaflets, each 5 to 15 millimeters long, narrowly elliptic or obovate with acute or shallowly notched tips. The fruit is a distinctive spreading, bladdery pod 15 to 25 millimeters long, ovate in shape and sparsely hairy with a widely triangular compressed beak.

Habitat: Sandy flats, washes of desert foothills, with

Bloom period: Mar-Jun(Oct)

Elevation: 450-2000 m

Bioregions: se DMtns, DSon.

California counties: San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo, Imperial

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