Alpine milk-vetch

Astragalus alpinus, the alpine milk-vetch, is a low-growing perennial herb in the family Fabaceae with a circumpolar arctic-alpine distribution across northern North America (Alaska, Canada, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes region), Greenland, Iceland, northern Europe (Scandinavia, Britain in the Scottish Highlands), and northern Asia. It grows in alpine and arctic tundra, calcareous mountain grassland, gravelly riverbanks, and base-rich rocky places. The plant produces a slender creeping rhizome from which arise loose mats of decumbent to ascending stems 5-25 cm long. Leaves are odd-pinnate, 3-8 cm long, with 13-25 small oblong-elliptic to ovate leaflets 5-15 mm long, finely pubescent on both surfaces but more so beneath. The inflorescence is a compact axillary raceme of 5-15 pendulous pea-flowers, the whole borne on a slender peduncle slightly exceeding the leaves. Each flower is 8-12 mm long, with a pale lilac to whitish standard, distinctively dark-purple-tipped wings, and a similarly purple-tipped keel, producing a characteristic bicoloured appearance. The fruit is an oblong pendulous pod 8-15 mm long, densely covered in spreading black hairs, with a pointed beak.