Purple Milk-vetch (Astragalus danicus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Astragalus danicus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Retz. |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | EN in England, this species has declined in chalk/limestone in southern & eastern England but appears to be stable on the coast further north |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Requires short swards which are likely to be restored due to their importance to a wide guild of species. An umbrella species. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | This species is widespread enough to potentially benefit from landscape management that aim to maintain or restore calcareous grassland on farmland |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Combination - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | This species is too widespread for a systematic survey although a sample of sites were surveyed by the BSBI as part of the Threatened Plants Project and this highlighted the extent of decline in the lowlands and the reasons why (mainly loss/reductions of grazing) |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Review what is known about the plant to identify why it has declined at existing and disappeared from former sites
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: Not applicable
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Identify key sites in southern/eastern England where current management is suboptimal and restore appropriate conditions through scrub removal/increased grazing
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 20 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Deliver chalk grassland and dune grassland restoration and maintenance for this species' recovery in landscapes where it has been lost
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.