Astragalus adsurgens (Prairie Milkvetch)
|Also known as:||Standing Milk-vetch, Lavender Milk-vetch|
|Habitat:||sun; dry prairie|
|Bloom season:||June - July|
|Plant height:||6 to 16 inches|
|Wetland Indicator Status:||none|
|MN county distribution (click map to enlarge):|
|National distribution (click map to enlarge):|
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Pea-like flowers in a dense, erect cluster at the tips of stalks emerging from leaf axils. Flower clusters are round to cylindrical, up to 1 inch wide and to 2 inches tall; stalks are as long as or up to twice as long as the associated leaf. Flowers are about ½ inch long, color ranges from light lavender to blue to pink to nearly white. The calyx holding the flower is light green with white or black spotting from flattened hairs.
Leaves and stems:
Leaves are compound in groups of 13 to 21, up to 3½ inches long by 1¼ inches wide, alternately attached. Leaflets average ½ inch long, are lance-elliptic to oblong, toothless with sparse to dense hairs on both surfaces. Dense multiple stems grow in spreading clusters up to 2 feet across from a single crown.
There are multiple varieties of Astragalus adsurgens, also known as Astragalus laxmannii; var. robustior is found in Minnesota. A species of dry prairies at cooler latitudes, Minnesota's western counties are at the eastern edge of its range in North America. Another variety of A. adsurgens is found in northern China and the Mongolian steppes, called Chinese standing milk-vetch, where it grows to five feet and is harvested as silage for livestock (yaks perhaps?). The plant structure of Prairie Milkvetch is similar to Ground Plum (A. crassicarpus), which has more open flower clusters and smaller leaflets.
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Photos by K. Chayka and Peter M. Dziuk taken at Glacial Ridge State Park.
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