Botanical atlas
Mountain Oxytropis
Oxytropis montana
This plant is kept in the atlas for identification and safety, not for use. Read the safety notes below before handling it, and keep it away from children, cats, and food.
Mountain Oxytropis has no real tradition as a medicine or food; instead, its place in mountain history is as a plant to know and respect. Generations of shepherds, ranchers, and packers traveling high alpine trails learned to recognize its silvery, pinnate leaves and pea-like blossoms so they could steer grazing animals away from it, since a herd that develops a taste for locoweed can be difficult to keep off it afterward. Indigenous peoples of the mountain West likewise carried detailed plant knowledge that distinguished the many pea-family look-alikes of high meadows, valuing Oxytropis species chiefly as a marker of terrain and season rather than as something to gather. Today it remains most meaningful as a small, tenacious presence of the high country, part of what makes an alpine meadow feel truly wild.
Safety.
Mountain oxytropis is a locoweed that often hosts a fungus producing swainsonine, a toxin causing serious, sometimes irreversible neurological poisoning in grazing animals. It has no history of safe human use and should never be eaten by people or given to livestock or pets.
Our sister app HerbLens identifies mountain oxytropis from a photo and keeps its full botanical portrait: growing guide, harvest notes, and look-alike warnings.
View on HerbLensHerbSense shares traditional herbal knowledge for education, not diagnosis or treatment. Herbs can interact with medicines and conditions. Speak with your doctor before acting on anything here, and seek care promptly for anything severe, sudden, or worsening.