Astragalus purshii

Pursh's milkvetch, Pursh's Milkvetch

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Pursh's milkvetch is a California native perennial herb found in rocky alpine and subalpine habitats at high elevations. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces delicate white, cream, or pink-purple flowers with petals that curve gently at about 40 degrees. Growing in dense, tangled clumps with stems 0 to 14 centimeters tall, it has a distinctive silvery-gray appearance from its fine, cottony hairs. Its leaves are 1 to 15 centimeters long, featuring 3 to 17 small leaflets that are narrowly elliptic to rounded with blunt or notched tips. The distinctive fruits resemble tiny cotton balls, ascending with dense white hairs and measuring 7 to 27 millimeters long.

California counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Kern, Inyo, Sierra, Ventura, Riverside, Mono, Modoc, Nevada, Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas, Mendocino, Shasta, Alpine, Trinity, Humboldt, Fresno, Placer, Tuolumne

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