Re: Locoweed is Jimsonweed

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Donna Dochterman dokadaarbians@earthlink.net
Ah!  But of course Bette!  Why didn't you say so!  ;o)  Oxytropis lambertii Pursch--also known as purple locoweed!  Here is your picture!  http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/literatr/wildflwr/species/oxytlamb.htm And here is another!  http://loco.ucdavis.edu/astragalus/images/Oxytropis_images/Olambertii.htm  Toxicity is the same as for the other Oxytropis spp. and the Astragalus spp.

I have also learned that, besides the common name of locoweed, Astragalus mollissimus is called Wolley milkvetch so not even that plant is called locoweed by all!  Common names are interesting, often colorful and discriptive, usually easier to learn, but rarely an accurate way to identify plants to others.  The common name is still the one I, like most others, know the local plants by though.  Common names can help me remember and catalog plants in my mind.  Besides which, when on the trails, it is the only name I am likely to get from my companions.  It is only when I need to look a plant up for some reason that the scientific name suddenly becomes very important to me.

Donna Dochterman
Dokada Arabians
http://members.tripod.com/~DokadaArabians/index.html

"Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better.
Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills.
Don't wish for less challenge; wish for more wisdom." 
Jim Rohn