Astragalus frigidus(L.) A.Gray

WFO wfo-0000213559 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Attila Oláh
fig. a Attila Oláh, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-26 / obs. 200824174
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. b Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158433171
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. c Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158428228
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Adam Knotek
fig. d Adam Knotek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152472032
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Pavel Komkov
fig. e Pavel Komkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150622862
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by Wolfgang Jauch
fig. f Wolfgang Jauch, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 147277030
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. g nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160707686
Astragalus frigidus, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. h nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141613362

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000999387
Filed as
Astragalus frigidus (L.) A.Gray
Det. by
Gray, A.
Collected
Richardson, J.
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 30 botanical countries

Regions where Astragalus frigidus is native: Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China South-Central, Chita, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Mongolia, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Austria, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, North European Russia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland AltayAmurBuryatiyaChina South-CentralChitaIrkutskKamchatkaKazakhstanKhabarovskKrasnoyarskMagadanMongoliaTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAustriaCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyItalyNorth European RussiaNorwayPolandRomaniaSwedenSwitzerland
Native distribution of Astragalus frigidus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
China South-Central CHC
Chita CTA
Irkutsk IRK
Kamchatka KAM
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Magadan MAG
Mongolia MON
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Austria AUT EUROPE
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Italy ITA
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 713 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -33.1 °C -22.1 °C -12.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 12.2 °C 15.8 °C 24.2 °C
Annual rainfall 332 mm 749 mm 2,254 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 11 mm 97 mm 453 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 713 research-grade observations of Astragalus frigidus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 25 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Astragaloides frigida (L.) Medik.
  • Astragalus exaltatus (Ledeb.) Bunge
  • Astragalus exaltatus f. glaber Litv.
  • Astragalus frigidus subsp. frigidus
  • Astragalus frigidus subsp. grigorjewii (B.Fedtsch.) Chater
  • Astragalus frigidus subsp. minutulus Kuvaev
  • Astragalus frigidus subsp. parviflorus (Ledeb.) Hultén
  • Astragalus frigidus subsp. secundus (DC.) Vorosch.
  • Astragalus frigidus var. grigorjewii (B.Fedtsch.) Jurtzev
  • Astragalus grigorjewi B.Fedtsch.
  • Astragalus kolaensis Kuzen.
  • Astragalus pubescens Schrank
  • Astragalus secundus DC.
  • Colutea frigida (L.) Poir.
  • Phaca alpina O.F.Müll.
  • Phaca exaltata Fisch. ex Sweet
  • Phaca frigida L.
  • Phaca frigida var. brevipes Ledeb.
  • Phaca frigida var. exaltata Ledeb.
  • Phaca frigida var. parviflora Ledeb.
  • Phaca ochreata Crantz
  • Phaca parviflora Turcz.
  • Phaca umbellata Nyman
  • Tragacantha frigida (L.) Kuntze

and 1 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.