Oxytropis arcticaR.Br.

arctic locoweed

WFO wfo-0000168302 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. a Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-18 / obs. 164746767
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. b Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164746806
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. c Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143949032
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. d Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164746836
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. e Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164746783
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. f Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164746799
Oxytropis arctica, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. g Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 107454483

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 Oxytropis arctica is native: Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Alaska, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon KrasnoyarskMagadanWest SiberiaYakutiyaAlaskaManitobaNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutYukon
Native distribution of Oxytropis arctica, 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
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Manitoba MAN
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Yukon YUK
Krasnoyarsk KRA ASIA-TEMPERATE
Magadan MAG
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK

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 48 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -35.5 °C -33.0 °C -27.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 7.9 °C 15.2 °C 16.9 °C
Annual rainfall 223 mm 364 mm 592 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 25 mm 36 mm 64 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 48 research-grade observations of Oxytropis arctica 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 18 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.

  • Aragallus arcticus (R.Br.) Greene
  • Aragallus bellii (Britton ex Macoun) Greene
  • Astragalus bellii (Britton ex Macoun) Tidestr.
  • Astragalus coronaminis (Fernald) Tidestr.
  • Oxytropis arctica subsp. bellii (Britton ex Macoun) Á.Löve & D.Löve
  • Oxytropis arctica var. arctica
  • Oxytropis arctica var. minor Hook.
  • Oxytropis arctica var. subumbellata Hook.
  • Oxytropis bellii (Britton ex Macoun) Palib.
  • Oxytropis coronaminis Fernald
  • Oxytropis karga Saposhn.
  • Oxytropis koyukukensis A.E.Porsild
  • Oxytropis sordida subsp. barnebyana (S.L.Welsh) Jurtzev
  • Oxytropis sordida subsp. murrayi Jurtzev
  • Oxytropis taimyrensis (Jurtzev) Á.Löve & D.Löve
  • Oxytropis uralensis var. arctica (R.Br.) Ledeb.
  • Spiesia arctica (R.Br.) Kuntze
  • Spiesia bellii Britton ex Macoun

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.