Ground Plum

Astragalus crassicarpus

Pollinator plantNitrogen fixer

Growing it

When	Flowers May to June; fruits June to August
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun
Water	Low
Soil	pH 6.5–8
Hardiness	zone 3–7
Mature height	0.3 m
Mature spread	0.6 m
Spacing	0.4 m
Years to maturity	3
Bloom	May–Jun
Flower colour	Purple White read from a published flora
In bloom	May June
Fruit	Jun–Aug
Native to	AB, SK

feather-compound leaves about 10 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

73 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. 23 herbarium specimens and 129 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: 52 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 47 records, high confidence
Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 41 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 35 records, high confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 22 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 7 records, low confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 3 records, low 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

8 documented relationships.

pollen for

Agapostemon texanus Robertson 1929
Calliopsis coloradensis Robertson 1929
Phasia robertsonii Robertson 1929
Polygonia interrogationis Robertson 1929
Syrphus torvus Robertson 1929

nectar for

Black Swallowtail Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Snowberry Clearwing Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
White-lined Sphinx Specimen records from iNaturalist.org

Also worth knowing

Safety

Low toxicity to pets

Edible parts

Young green seed pods (raw or cooked), mature seeds (cooked)

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