Montana Field Guide

Herbaceous perennial. Herbage densely to sparsely villous. Stems 6–40 cm, spreading or ascending from a branched caudex. Leaves short-petiolate with 7 to 15 narrowly lanceolate to elliptic leaflets 5–25 mm long; lower stipules ovate and united opposite the petiole, becoming lance-attenuate and distinct above. Inflorescence with 5 to 25 spreading to declined flowers. Flowers white; calyx black-strigillose; sepals 2–3 mm long; banner upturned, 7–10 mm long; keel 5–8 mm long, purple-tipped. Legume crescent-shaped, laterally compressed, 1–2 cm long, glabrous, nodding with a stipe 2–8 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Our plants are variety glabriusculus (Hook.) Isley.

Sparsely vegetated, stony soil of grasslands, fellfields, exposed slopes; plains, 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).