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Plant Profile

Gunnison's Milkvetch (Astragalus anisus)

Photo Caption

Photo Credit: Alex Seglias

Global Rank: G3 - Vulnerable
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Fabaceae
State: CO
Nature Serve ID: 144739
Lifeform: Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection:

Description:

Colorado endemic in Gunnison and Saguache counties. Racemes of 3 to 7 flowers, pink-purple, corolla 15-20 mm long. Ovoid strigose pods, 15 to 20 mm in length. Dwarf plants, 5 to 10 cm in height. Leaves with 9 to 15 leaflets, each 4 to 10 mm in length, tomentose, and silvery.

Where is Gunnison's Milkvetch (Astragalus anisus) located in the wild?

Habitat:

Found within Sagebrush Shrubland (dominated by Artemisia tridentata ssp. tridentata, Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana, Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis, or Artemisia cana) and Sagebrush Shrub Steppe (dominated by Artemisia nova or Artemisia arbuscula) ecological system types; primarily within the Dry Sagebrush Shrubland type. Usually found in fairly open sites where sagebrush shrubs do not form a closed canopy, but sometimes shelters under low sagebrush plants. Sites are characterized by the absence of trees, moderate shrub cover, moderate understory cover, and extensive bare ground. Found on flats on the floor of the Gunnison Basin and on hillsides. Usually on sandy clay to gravelly soils overlying granitic bedrock; parent materials include rhyolite, tuff, gneiss, and schist. Slopes range 0 - 34% (average 17.3%) and aspects are usually west-facing. Other associated species include Phlox hoodii, Bouteloua gracilis, Poa fendleriana, and Stipa pinetorum. 2300 - 2875 m.

Distribution:

The species entire global range is contained within the upper Gunnison Basin, in Gunnison and Saguache counties, Colorado. Estimated range is 1,962 square kilometers (757 square miles).

States & Provinces:

Gunnison's Milkvetch can be found in Colorado

Which CPC Partners conserve Gunnison's Milkvetch (Astragalus anisus)?

Denver Botanic Gardens

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 06/09/17

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Alexandra Seglias

10/28/2024

A seed collection was made in 2023 from Gunnison County, Colorado. The collection is held at Denver Botanic Gardens

08/19/2020

Seed collection and storage

08/19/2020

Seed collection and storage

Nature Serve Biotics

05/02/2017

Although Astragalus anisus is locally common and appears to have a stable population, the species entire global range is contained within the upper Gunnison Basin, in Gunnison and Saguache counties, Colorado. Threats are low to moderate. Only six occurrences are considered to be of good viability. ?Best management practices have been developed to help off-set impacts from the species' primary threat, roads and road construction (Panjabi and Smith 2014).

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

The primary threat at this time is considered to be road building (Decker and Anderson 2004, Rondeau et al. 2011). Other threats are from off-road vehicle use, non-motorized recreation, non-native species invasion, grazing, residential development, fire s

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

There are 35 principal occurrences documented in the Colorado Natural Heritage Program database. Two of the 35 occurrences have not been observed in over 20 years. The USFS Conservation Assessment documents 83 occurrences (Decker and Anderson 2004). It is likely that this discrepancy in the total number of occurrences is because some of the sites reported by Decker and Anderson are represented in the Heritage database as portions of other occurrences and not reported separately.

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

Unknown

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

On BLM Sensitive Species list

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

Research priorities for Astragalus anisus are, in order of importance, population monitoring, studying pollination dynamics and possible impacts on pollinators, implementing demographic studies sufficient to perform elasticity analyses, identifying critical habitat factors, if any, and quantifying the effects of land management practices on the survival and persistence of the species (Clark and Anderson 2004).

M.E. Jones, Mary VB Goshorn

01/01/2010

Seed collection and storage.