Locoweed is a common name in North America for any plant that produces swainsonine, a phytotoxin harmful to livestock. Worldwide, swainsonine is produced by a small number of species, most in three genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae: Oxytropis and Astragalus in North America, and Swainsona in Australia. The term locoweed usually refers only to the North American species of Oxytropis and Astragalus, but this article includes the other species as well. Some references may list Datura stramonium as locoweed.
Artemisia tridentata, commonly called big sagebrush, Great Basin sagebrush or (locally) simply sagebrush, is an aromatic shrub from the family Asteraceae, which grows in arid and semi-arid conditions, throughout a range of cold desert, steppe, and mountain habitats in the Intermountain West of North America. The vernacular name "sagebrush" is also used for several related members of the genus Artemisia, such as California sagebrush.
Astragalus is a large genus of over 3,000 species of herbs and small shrubs, belonging to the legume family Fabaceae and the subfamily Faboideae. It is the largest genus of plants in terms of described species. The genus is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names include milkvetch, locoweed and goat's-thorn. Some pale-flowered vetches are similar in appearance, but they are more vine-like than Astragalus.
Securigera varia, commonly known as crownvetch or purple crown vetch, is a low-growing legume vine. It is native to Africa, Asia and Europe and is commonly used throughout the United States and Canada for erosion control, roadside planting and soil rehabilitation. It has become an invasive species in many states of the US.
Sesbania drummondii, known as poisonbean, rattlebox and rattlebush, is a medium-sized perennial shrub in the legume family Fabaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States, from Texas east to Florida.
Oxytropis campestris, the field locoweed, is a plant native to the Northwestern United States and all Canada, sometimes grown as an ornamental plant.
Swainsonine is an indolizidine alkaloid. It is a potent inhibitor of Golgi alpha-mannosidase II, an immunomodulator, and a potential chemotherapy drug. As a toxin in locoweed it also is a significant cause of economic losses in livestock industries, particularly in North America.
Cytisus proliferus, tagasaste or tree lucerne, is a small spreading evergreen tree that grows 3–4 m (10–13 ft) high. It is a well known fertilizer tree. It is a member of the Fabaceae (pea) family and is indigenous to the dry volcanic slopes of the Canary Islands, but it is now grown in Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the world as a fodder crop.
Oxytropis is a genus of plants in the legume family. It is one of three genera of plants known as locoweeds, and are notorious for being toxic to grazing animals. The other locoweed genus is the closely related Astragalus. There are about 300 species, native to Eurasia and North America. Several species are native to the Arctic. These are hairy perennial plants which produce raceme inflorescences of pink, purple, white, or yellow flowers which are generally pea-like but have distinctive sharply beaked keels. The plant produces legume pods containing the seeds.
Conium maculatum, the hemlock or poison hemlock, is a highly poisonous biennial herbaceous flowering plant in the carrot family Apiaceae, native to Europe and North Africa. A hardy plant capable of living in a variety of environments, hemlock is widely naturalized in locations outside its native range, such as parts of North and South America, Australia and West Asia, to which it has been introduced.
Oxytropis lambertii is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by several common names, including purple locoweed, woolly locoweed, and Lambert crazyweed.
Lespedeza cuneata is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names Chinese bushclover and sericea lespedeza, or just sericea. It is native to Asia and eastern Australia and it is present elsewhere as an introduced species and sometimes an invasive plant.
Lupinus sericeus is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name silky lupine or Pursh's silky lupine. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to Arizona and east to Alberta and Colorado.
Nolina microcarpa is a species of flowering plant in the asparagus family known by the common names sacahuista and palmilla. Like other species of Nolina, it may be called beargrass. It is native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States in Arizona and New Mexico. It does occur in the southwestern corner of Utah, where it has a limited distribution on Navajo Sandstone, but reports of it occurring in Texas may be in error.
Oxytropis podocarpa is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common names stalkpod locoweed, stalked-pod crazyweed, and Gray's point-vetch. It is native to North America, where it occurs in the northern latitudes, from Yukon and British Columbia across the low arctic to northern Quebec and Labrador. In the Rocky Mountains it occurs at the higher elevations as far south as Colorado.
Physaria fremontii is a species of flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae known by the common name Fremont's bladderpod. It is endemic to Wyoming in the United States, where it occurs only in and around the Wind River Range in Fremont County.
Aeschynomene indica is a species of flowering plant in the legume family. Common names include Indian jointvetch, kat sola, budda pea, curly indigo, hard sola, northern jointvetch, indische Schampflanze (German), angiquinho, maricazinho, papquinha, pinheirinho, he meng (Chinese), kusanemu (Japanese), diya siyambala (Sinhala), and ikin sihk (Pohnpeian).
Astragalus drummondii is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known by the common name Drummond's milkvetch. The botanist Thomas Drummond first identified the plant during his travels in North America from 1825 to 1835, the year of his death. Accordingly, A. drummondii, amongst many other plants, was named after the late botanist. Upon the return of samples collected by Drummond to England, his findings were published in Sir William Hooker’s Flora Boreali-Americana in 1840.
Astragalus mollissimus is a perennial plant in the legume family (Fabaceae) found in the Colorado Plateau and Canyonlands region of the southwestern United States.
Oxytropis prenja G. Beck in Reichenb. & Reichenb. Fil. is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae.
