Alpine Hedysarum (Bear Root)

Hedysarum americanum

Hosts 2 caterpillarsPollinator plantNitrogen fixer

No openly-licensed photograph of this species is in the catalogue yet. We show a photo only when we can credit the photographer.

Growing it

When	Flowers June to August; fruits August to September
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun
Water	Low
Soil	pH 6–8
Hardiness	zone 2–6
Mature height	0.5 m
Mature spread	0.6 m
Spacing	0.4 m
Years to maturity	4
Bloom	Jun–Aug
Flower colour	Pink Purple not verified, a genus-level estimate
In bloom	June July August
Fruit	Aug–Sep
Native to	AB, SK

feather-compound leaves about 12 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

226 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 80 herbarium specimens and 678 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 454 records, high confidence
Western Alberta Upland central AB: 231 records, high confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 218 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 166 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 106 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 52 records, high confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 38 records, high confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 32 records, high confidence
Mid-Boreal Uplands central AB / SK: 22 records, high confidence
Peace Lowland north AB: 15 records, medium confidence
Slave River Lowland north AB: 12 records, medium confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

10 documented relationships.

nectar for

Brown-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Frigid Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Nevada Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Silvery Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Spear-marked Black Moth Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Tricoloured Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Western Tailed-Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org

caterpillar host for

Silvery Blue Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Western Tailed-Blue Acorn & Sheldon 2006

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Edible parts

Roots

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate