''Astragalus agnicidus'' is a rare species of
milkvetch
''Astragalus'' is a large genus of over 3,000 species of herbs and small shrubs, belonging to the legume family Fabaceae and the subfamily Faboideae. It is the largest genus of plants in terms of described species. The genus is native to tempe ...
known by the common name Humboldt County milkvetch. It is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to northern
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, where it is known only from two populations in
Humboldt County and one in
Mendocino County
Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza) is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United Sta ...
.
The plant was undescribed until the 1950s. Until then it was known only from one ranch in Humboldt County, where
sheep ranchers blamed the unnamed species for the deaths of their animals, which may have eaten it. They eradicated the plant from their land, and by the time it was formally described and named in 1957 it was thought to be
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
. The species name given the plant, ''agnicidus'', means "lamb-killer".
[Center for Plant Conservation Profile]
The plant was rediscovered in 1987. A few individuals were found growing in a recently bulldozed clearing, their long-buried seeds having been plowed into favorable conditions for
germination
Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...
. The plants were brought under the protection of the landowners, the same family that was responsible for its near-extinction and had changed their minds about its value.
[ Two other populations of the plant have since been discovered in areas of the coastal mountains that had been recently logged; this is an early successional species which arises in disturbed areas.][ Too much disturbance of an area can be harmful, however, since it may cause the whole patch of buried seeds to sprout at once, making the population vulnerable to destruction as it lacks backup seed stores.]inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
is a dense cluster of 10 to 40 white pealike flowers. The plant is self-pollinating
Self-pollination is a form of pollination in which pollen from the same plant arrives at the stigma of a flower (in flowering plants) or at the ovule (in gymnosperms). There are two types of self-pollination: in autogamy, pollen is transferred to ...
and the flowers are also pollinated by native bumblebees
A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct related gener ...
. The fruit is a bent legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...
capsule 1 to 1.5 centimeters long which dries to a papery texture.
References
External links
Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileThe Nature ConservancyPhoto gallery
agnicidus
Endemic flora of California
Plants described in 1957
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