Astragalus whitneyi

Balloon milkvetch, Balloon Milkvetch

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Balloon milkvetch is a California native perennial found in western Sierra Nevada Mountains and inner Coast Ranges in dry rocky habitats. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces cream to pink-purple flowers in small clusters of 3 to 16 blossoms, with banner petals recurving at 50 to 80 degrees. Growing with several ascending or erect stems 10 to 40 centimeters tall and covered in silvery hairs, it forms a low, open, and widely branched structure. Its leaves feature 5 to 21 small leaflets, each 2 to 21 millimeters long, ranging from oblong to obovate in shape. The distinctive fruit is a pendulous, bladdery pod 15 to 60 millimeters long, often mottled red or purple and papery in texture.

California counties: Ventura, Inyo, Kern, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Amador, Alpine, Madera, Siskiyou, Tuolumne, Nevada, Tulare, Placer, Trinity, Plumas, Sierra

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