Astragalus robbinsii robbinsii (Oakes) A.Gray (1856:98)
Robbins’ milkvetch
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonyms: Phaca robbinsii Oakes in Mag. Hort. Bot. 7: 181 (1841); Tragacantha robbinsii (Oakes) Kuntze in Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 947 (1891); Astragalus labradoricus var. robbinsii (Oakes) M.E.Jones in Rev. N.-Amer. Astragalus: 134 (1923); Atelophragma robbinsii (Oakes) Rydb. in Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 55: 124 (1928)
Conservation Status
Extinct (WCMC, 1992:219; Knapp et al., 2021; POWO, 2024; Christenhusz & Govaerts, 2025)
Last record: 1829 or later (discovery) (NatureServe, 2026); 1875 or before [by implication] (Congdon, 1875)
Rediscovered in: 1875 or before (Congdon, 1875)
Last record (disputed): 15 June 1893 (Ripley, 1975:43 [as 1893]; NatureServe, 2026); 1894 (Knapp et al., 2021; Christenhusz & Govaerts, 2025)
Distribution & Habitat
Vermont, USA
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Barneby, R. C. (1964). Atlas of North American Astragalus. 2 Vols. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York. 1188 pp.
Christenhusz, Maarten J. M. and Govaerts, Rafaël. (2023). Uitgestorven. Op plantenjacht rond de wereld: 1-511. Sterck & De Vreese.
Christenhusz, Maarten J. M. and Govaerts, Rafaël. (2025). Plant extinction in the Anthropocene. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 207(3): 183-196. https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/boae045 [Appendix S1]
Congdon, J. W. (1875). Rare plants. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 6(9): 56.
Countryman, W. D. (1980). Vermont's endangered plants and the threats to their survival. Rhodora 82: 163-171.
Flora of North America Editorial Committee (FNA). (2023). Flora of North America north of Mexico. Vol. 11. Magnoliophyta: Fabaceae, parts 1+2. Oxford Univ. Press, New York. xxvii + 1108 pp.
Gilman, A. (2015). New Flora of Vermont. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden. New York, NY. 608 pp.
Haines, A. A. (2011). New England Wildflower Society’s Flora Novae Angliae, a manual for th identification of native and naturalized higher vascular plants of New England. New England Wildflower Society and Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.
Kartesz, J. T. (1994). A synonymized checklist of the vascular flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland. 2nd edition. 2 vols. Timber Press, Portland, OR.
Knapp, Wesley M., Frances, Anne, Noss, Reed, Naczi, Robert F. C., Weakley, Alan, Gann, George D., Baldwin, Bruce G., Miller, James, McIntyre, Patrick, Mishler, Brent D., Moore, Gerry, Olmstead, Richard G., Strong, Anna, Kennedy, Kathryn, Heidel, Bonnie and Gluesenkamp, Daniel. (2021). Vascular plant extinction in the continental United States and Canada. Conservation Biology 35(1): 360-368. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13621 [Supporting Information (Appendix S1)]
Magee, D. W. and Ahles, H. E. (1999). Flora of the Northeast. A Manual of the Vascular Flora of New England and Adjacent New York. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA.
NatureServe. (2026). Astragalus robbinsii var. robbinsii: Robbins's Milkvetch. NatureServe Network Biodiversity Location Data accessed through NatureServe Explorer [web application]. NatureServe, Arlington, Virginia. Available at: https://explorer.natureserve.org/ [Accessed on 26 September 2026]
POWO. (2024). Plants of the World Online (online resource). Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. Available at: https://powo.science.kew.org/ [Accessed 12 July 2024]
Ripley, S. Dillon. (1975). Report on endangered and threatened species of the United States. House Document 94-51: 1-200 [43].
Seymour, F. C. (1969). The flora of Vermont: a manual for the identification of ferns and flowering plants growing without cultivation in Vermont. The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. 377 pp.
Walter, Kerry S. and Gillett, Harriet J. (eds.). (1998). 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. Compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. Gland, Switzerland & Cambridge, UK: IUCN – The World Conservation Union. lxiv + 862 pp.
WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre). (1992). Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's living resources. London: Chapman & Hall. xx + 594 pp.