jacobfpenner's Identifications

Growing right off the gravel road, and very abundant on top of Point of Rocks. Many of the bushels have white, decayed stems from flowering organs years past. Bunched together with Asteraceae, clovers, prickly pears, buffalograss, and other grass species.

Single specimen on the edge of a prairie dog town.
Single stalk, leaves alternate with very fine points at the edges of the leaf straight from the central vein.
Each flower head is a culmination of several flowers bunched together on a single stalk that aggregates with more stalks, and continues this pattern down to the central stalk.
The uppermost leaves are showing signs of budding into new flowers (fourth picture).
16-20inches tall (a little under knee height).

There are a lot of milkvetches in North America, especially in the western US. Luckily, we only have two species in Douglas County, and the other one (Astragalus crassicarpus; ground-plum) has purplish flowers. Some milkvetch species accumulate selenium and can be rather poisonous to cattle (and other animals that might eat them); this is not one of them.

On northeast facing slope near conjunction of two streams. 5 individual clusters seen on same slope. Has been observed here multiple consecutive years.

There is a prior documented record of Polystichum acrostichoides collected in Douglas County at a location approximately 3 miles south of here in 1977.