Montana Field Guide

Perennial from a shallow, branched caudex. Stems erect to ascending, 30–70 cm, glabrate to strigillose, little branched. Leaves mainly cauline; basal petioles 8–15 cm long; leaflets 7 to 11, 3–10 cm long with acute to mucronate tips, glabrate to strigose. Racemes loose to moderately dense, higher than the leaves, 6–20 cm long. Flowers blue and yellow; calyx tube 1–2 mm long, distended behind the pedicel into a spur 1–2 mm long; upper lip 2–3 mm long; lower lip slightly longer; banner 8–11 mm long, sparsely pubescent around the upper calyx lobe, reflexed <45°; wings 7–12 mm long, sometimes hairy at the tip. Legume 15–35 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Grasslands, dry, open forest; valleys, montane (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 bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Bauer 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).