The Lane Mountain milk vetch, Astragalus jaegerianus (family Fabaceae), is an extremely rare plant of the central Mojave Desert north of Barstow, California. In fact, in October 1998, after years of procrastination, the federal government finally included this species on its protected endangered species list. We would like to think that UCLA helped to draw attention to this interesting California endemic.
You may be wondering how UCLA became involved with this plant. Beginning in spring 1994, the U.S. Army invited three UCLA plant researchers--Rasoul Sharifi, Arthur Gibson, and Phil Rundel--to study this species at Ft. Irwin National Training Center, specifically to learn about its physiological properties. Until that time, few individual plants of this species had been observed, and existing studies had merely attempted to locate and count individuals. Astragalus jaegerianus appeared to grow almost entirely within the canopies of low desert shrubs, suggesting that this climbing herbaceous perennial preferred growing in shade of its host shrubs. Instead, the UCLA research team determined that this species has physiological adaptations for growing at high levels of sunlight, probably using its host shrub as a trellis to gain full exposure to sunlight while obtaining protection from predators by its host, usually a leafless species, such as turpentine bush (Thamnosma montana), Mormon tea (Ephedra nevadensis), or bladder sage (Salazaria mexicana). Sometimes adaptations are not always as obvious as they seem!
This spring, led by Barry Prigge and Rasoul Sharifi from MEMBG, six UCLA scientists have been engaged in an intensive survey to locate and map all major and minor populations of A. jaegerianus on and near Ft. Irwin, so that this species can be kept out of harm's way. This nitrogen-fixing species--certainly not remarkable for its beauty--is nonetheless worthy of conserving within its native habitat.