Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Astragalus drummondii
- Family
- Fabaceae
- CommonName
- Drummond’s milkvetch, locoweed
- Presence
- YES
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1914
- LatestDate
- 2019
- Ecosystem
- basin, foothill, montane
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras, NCristos, LBasin
- Counties
- Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache
- Passes
- WildlifePreserves
- Coller, Hot Creek
- Other Localities
- La Botica
- Comments
- Locoweed is familiar sight all around the foothills and lower montane of the Watershed. The one Basin collection comes from the San Luis Hills. Poisonous to livestock, it has long been a target of ranchers and farmers. In the late 19th century, a calvary officer stationed near Uracca in Alamosa Co, whose horses were being affected, offered money for destroyed plants; native Americans and Hispanic settlers started growing the plant to collect more money (Harlan 2002 [1976], p. 177). In the USA, locoweed is largely a Rocky Mountain plant that, however, does not range much farther south than the northernmost counties of New Mexico.
- Annotation