Coast locoweed is the common Astragalus species that most people are likely to encounter.  It also goes by the common names of rattleweed and milkvetch, and is a robust, bushy-branched perennial, strigose to spreading-villose with an erect stem growing to 40" but generally not that tall.  The leaves contain 15-39 ovate-oblong leaflets and are up to 8" long.  There are 10-50 spreading to reflexed flowers in each inflorescence with petals that are cream-colored or greenish-white.  Bladdery fruits, 1/4" to 3/4" wide and 1/2" to 1-3/4" long, with the ventral sutures less convex than the dorsal ones, are pendent on a slender stalk-like stipe. Coast locoweed is typically present on coastal bluffs and in fields below 1000' from Ventura County to northern Baja, blooming from February to June.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Astragalus 2) trichopodus 3) lonchus.
Pronunciation: as-TRAG-a-lus tri-ko-PO-dus LON-kus.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.