Astragalus palmeri

Palmer locoweed

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Palmer locoweed is a California native perennial found in the southern Peninsular Ranges, southwestern Mojave Desert Mountains, and western edge of the Sonoran Desert in sandy or rocky places at elevations of 150 to 1,650 meters. Flowering from December to June, this plant produces pink-purple to cream flowers with purple veins, with banner petals 7 to 10 millimeters long that curve back at a 90-degree angle. Growing with decumbent stems 20 to 50 centimeters long, it forms a low, open, and widely branched habit that is sparsely to densely covered in silvery strigose hairs. Its leaves are 2 to 16 centimeters long, composed of 9 to 21 leaflets that are approximately 5 to 25 millimeters long and widely elliptic in shape. The fruit is a moderately to strongly inflated ovate pod 10 to 25 millimeters long, with a short erect beak about one-fifth to one-third the length of the pod body.

Habitat: Sandy or rocky places

Bloom period: Dec-Jun

Elevation: 150-1650 m

Bioregions: PR, s edge DMoj, sw DMtns, w edge DSon

California counties: San Diego, Riverside, Imperial, San Bernardino, Los Angeles

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