Milk Vetch

From LoveToKnow Garden

Milk Vetch (Astragalus) - A large family of alpine and perennial leguminous plants, not many of which are valuable for the garden. The best are rock plants, but they grow freely on the level ground in borders. A. monspessulanus is useful for the front of borders and for the rock garden. The vigorous shoots are prostrate, so that it is seen to greater advantage when its long heads of crimson and rosy flowers droop over rocks. It grows well in any soil. There are several varieties. A. Onobrychis (Saintfoin Milk Vetch) is a handsome species from S. Europe and Siberia (in some varieties spreading, and in others about 18 inches high), with racemes of purplish-crimson flowers in June. It thrives well on any good loam. A. dasyglottis is well suited for the rock garden. Its numerous showy flower-heads, of a clear bright purple, are set off by the fresh green foliage. A. adsurgens is dwarf, with numbers of violet-carmine flowers. A. vaginatus succeeds in an exposed position in any ordinary border. The showy deep violet-purple flowers are borne in dense erect clusters for a long time.