Astragalus spinosus(Forssk.) Muschl.

WFO wfo-0000212567 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Astragalus spinosus, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. a Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-04 / obs. 187479924
Astragalus spinosus, photographed by Kristof Zyskowski
fig. b Kristof Zyskowski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 36293312
Astragalus spinosus, photographed by Nasser Halaweh
fig. c Nasser Halaweh, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 18444445
Astragalus spinosus, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. d Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187479950
Astragalus spinosus, photographed by Kristof Zyskowski
fig. e Kristof Zyskowski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 34625996

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.

Native range 9 botanical countries

Regions where Astragalus spinosus is native: Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai EgyptLibyaIranIraqKuwaitLebanon-SyriaPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinai
Native distribution of Astragalus spinosus, 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
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iraq IRQ
Kuwait KUW
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Egypt EGY AFRICA
Libya LBY

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 121 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.2 °C 5.8 °C 7.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.2 °C 33.2 °C 39.6 °C
Annual rainfall 31 mm 115 mm 480 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 1 mm 2 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 121 research-grade observations of Astragalus spinosus 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 17 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.

  • Astragalus armatus var. libycus Pamp.
  • Astragalus forskahlei Boiss.
  • Astragalus forskahlii Boiss.
  • Astragalus kneuckeri Freyn
  • Astragalus microthamnus Boiss. & Hausskn.
  • Astragalus rauwolfii Vahl
  • Astragalus scorpius Boiss.
  • Astragalus spinosus f. aegyptiacus Bornm.
  • Astragalus spinosus f. palaestinus Bornm.
  • Astragalus spinosus var. hamrinensis Eig
  • Astragalus spinosus var. kneuckeri (Freyn) Täckh. & Boulos
  • Astragalus tumidus Willd.
  • Colutea spinosa Forssk.
  • Saccocalyx tumidus Steven
  • Tragacantha forskaolii Kuntze
  • Tragacantha microthamna (Boiss. & Hausskn.) Kuntze
  • Tragacantha scorpius (Boiss.) Kuntze

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.