Montana Field Guide

Perennial from an intricately branched caudex. Herbage strigose to villous. Stems prostrate, ascending at the tip, 10–50 cm. Leaves with 9 to 15 linear-elliptic leaflets, 5–15 mm long with rounded to acute tips; stipules 3–5 mm long, basally connate, turning black with drying. Inflorescence open with 5 to 10 spreading flowers. Flowers pink to purple, often with white wings; calyx white- or black-strigillose; sepals 1–2 mm long; banner 6–9 mm long, reflexed; keel 4–5 mm long. Legume pendent, obovoid, inflated, papery, white-strigillose, 5–10 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Sandy or gravelly soil of grasslands, fellfields or on streambanks; valleys to alpine (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

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).