Astragalus sepultipes
Bishop milkvetch, Bishop Milkvetch
Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Bishop milkvetch is a California native perennial found on the eastern edge of the central and southern Sierra Nevada Mountains and eastern Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, growing in dry, granitic sand within sagebrush and pinyon forest at elevations of 1,450 to 2,000 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces pale pink to lilac-white flowers with white wing tips, arranged in clusters of 10 to 30 blossoms. Growing with ascending stems 15 to 35 centimeters tall that are mostly hairless and partially buried in the ground, it forms a loose, widely branched clump with silvery or gray-silky hairs. Its leaves are 2 to 8 centimeters long, composed of 7 to 17 obovate leaflets 3 to 14 millimeters long with notched or blunt tips. The fruit is a stiff-papery, somewhat incurved pod 15 to 20 millimeters long with fine, shaggy hairs.
Habitat: Dry, granitic sand, in sagebrush in pinyon forest
Bloom period: May-Jul
Elevation: 1450-2000 m
Bioregions: e edge c&s SNH, SNE (Inyo Co.).
California counties: Inyo
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.