Astragalus purshii (Pursh's Milk-Vetch) - photos and description
General: Low plants with a cushion growth habit. Foliage is densely villose and greyish-green in colour.
Flowers: Plants are scapose, the flowers are white with purple keels, grow singly, or in a globose spike. We measured flowers to 20 to 25 mm long. Fruit is white woolly.
Leaves: Leaves basal, pinnate, we counted up to 13 leaflets. The leaflets oblanceolate to ovate, measured to 1 cm long and 6 mm wide.
Height: We measured plants to 11 cm in height.
Habitat: Dry prairie, and prairie hillsides in the extreme southwest corner of Saskatchewan.
Abundance: Very rare, ranked as S3 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: The above photos were taken May 20th, and June 8th, dry prairie hillsides, south of the Cypress Hills, about 450 km southwest of our home in Regina, SK.