Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Astragalus ceramicus
- Family
- Fabaceae
- CommonName
- painted milkvetch
- Presence
- Yes
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1931
- LatestDate
- 2019
- Ecosystem
- basin, foothill
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, NCristos, UBasin
- Counties
- Alamosa, Saguache
- Passes
- WildlifePreserves
- Great Sand Dunes
- Other Localities
- Comments
- In the Watershed there are 13 vouchers so far of painted milkvetch, all except one found in stabilizied sand-dune habitat, from the Great Sand Dunes north to Crestone. The exception was collected NW of Saguache on “rocky slopes and plains below." The population in and around the Great Sand Dunes NPP is healthy. From 2018 to 2023, there have been 14 observations of Astragalus ceramicus from that preserve. In the USA, occurring in similar habitats, the species ranges from the western border of Nevada east to the Great Plains. It follows the Rio Grande drainage two-thirds of the way down into New Mexico but no farther. Note that the plant is dainty and slight, often buried in grasses, and noticed by humans only when the pods—bright, mottled, and egg-shaped—develope. So photographs of flowers are few and far between.
- Annotation