''Oxytropis campestris'', the field locoweed, is a plant native to Northern Europe, the mountains of Central & Southern Europe, the Northwestern United States and all of Canada, sometimes grown as an
ornamental plant
Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that ...
.
It is found in prairies, woods, and meadows, and prefers gravelly and rocky slopes, where it grows most abundantly. The plant has numerous variants. It is a larval host plant of the
small blue
The small blue (''Cupido minimus'') is a Palearctic butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Despite its common name, it is not particularly blue. The male has some bluish suffusion at the base of its upper wings but is mostly dark brown like the fem ...
butterfly
Description
''Oxytropis campestris'' blooms flowers from May to July. These are
racemes
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...
that are capitate or oblong, 4 to 15 cm in length. The plants have 8 to 32 flowers that rise from a
scape. The actual flowers have five lobes and form a calyx tube. They are of a cream to yellowish color, but sometimes of pink, blue, or purple, with hairs that are usually black. The keel petals are pointed, and often have purple blotches.
The plant also produces fruit which matures from July to September. These are
legumes which are oblong-ovate 1.5 to 2 cm in length. They are mostly
sessile
Sessility, or sessile, may refer to:
* Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about
* Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant
* Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...
and
dehiscent from the tip. The fruit is membranous and contains many seeds.
The plant grows perennially, with an acaulescent
forb
A forb or phorb is an herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid (grass, sedge, or rush). The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory. Typically these are dicots without woo ...
reaching 20 to 50 cm in height and has a taproot.
Leaves grow alternately in a
pinnate
Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...
fashion and are usually 8 to 40 cm long. The leaves are dimorphic, with primary leaves short ovate leaflets, and secondary leaves with 11 to 33 leaflets. These secondary leaflets are 1 to 2.5 cm long.
Toxicity
The ''Oxytropis campestris'' plant is poisonous and may cause loco disease in livestock. From this it derives the common name ''field locoweed'' or some other variations. It is therefore worthless as food and is consumed only when other forage is not available.
[Stubbendieck, James; Hatch, Stephan L; Butterfield, Charles H (February 1, 1992). ''North American Range Plants''. U of Nebraska Press. . p. 357.]
Conservation
Though this plant is common in general, one variety, var. ''chartacea'', is a rare taxon limited to two counties in the state of
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. It is federally listed as a threatened species of the United States.
[USFWS]
Determination of threatened status for ''Oxytropis campestris'' var. ''chartacea''.
Federal Register'' September 28, 1988.[USFWS]
''Oxytropis campestris'' var. ''chartacea'' Five-year Review.
2009.
See also
*
Locoweed
Locoweed (also crazyweed and loco) is a common name in North America for any plant that produces swainsonine, a phytotoxin harmful to livestock. Worldwide, swainsonine is produced by a small number of species, most of them in three genera of the f ...
References
External links
*
*
campestris
Flora of Subarctic America
Flora of the Northwestern United States
Flora of Western Canada
Flora of Northern Canada
Flora of Eastern Canada
Flora of the Rocky Mountains
Flora of Colorado
Flora of Utah
Flora of Alaska
Garden plants of North America
Flora of the Carpathians
{{Faboideae-stub