Montana Field Guide

Perennial from rhizome-like caudex branches. Herbage glabrate to sparsely strigose. Stems erect to ascending, 5–25 cm. Leaves with 13 to 19 linear-lanceolate leaflets, 3–15 mm long with acute tips; stipules 1–4 mm long, connate. Inflorescence sparse with 1 to 5 spreading flowers, shorter than the leaves. Flowers white; calyx black strigose; sepals 1–3 mm long; banner 8–12 mm long, moderately reflexed; keel 6–8 mm long with a purple tip. Legume pendent, narrowly elliptic, flattened, sparsely black-and white-strigose, 8–14 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Moist or wet, often alkaline meadows in the valley, foothills, and montane zones.

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus appositus, Bombus auricomus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus borealis, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus huntii, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus griseocollis, and Bombus insularis (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Wilson et al. 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).