Goat’s thorn milk vetch (Astragalus tragacantha) is a low, thorny, nitrogen-fixing deciduous shrub of sandy and rocky coastal ground in western and southern Europe (France, Portugal and Spain) and North Africa. It is one of several Astragalus species tapped for tragacanth gum, a mucilaginous exudate used historically as a food thickener, pharmaceutical mucilage, and textile/paper sizing agent.1