Botany on the Byways: Locoweed

Locoweed on Badger Ridge at Hitchcock Nature Center (photo by Seth Brooks)

Oxytropis lambertii commonly known as purple locoweed, or just locoweed. It is perennial common on Loess Hills prairies and dry prairies and is exclusively found only in the western counties in the state of Iowa. It is native to grasslands in the Canadian Prairie of central Canada and in the mid-west and Great Plains of the United States from Texas to Manitoba and west to Arizona and Montana.

Locoweed flowers from late May to mid-June. 

Oxytropis lambertii plant is one of the locoweeds most frequently implicated in livestock poisoning. Locoweed is a common name in North America for any plant that produces swainsonine, a phytotoxin harmful to livestock.

(photo by Seth Brooks)

(photo by Seth Brooks)

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