Montana Field Guide

Perennial from a tightly- to loosely-branched caudex. Stems erect, 1–80 cm, glabrate to sericeous. Leaves basal and cauline; lower petioles 6–30 cm long; leaflets 7 to 11, strigose to sericeous beneath, glabrous to sericeous above, 3–10 cm long with acute tips. Racemes solitary, dense, higher than the leaves, 2–25 cm long. Flowers dark blue; calyx tube strigose to sericeous, 1–2 mm long, not spurred; upper lip 3–6 mm long, equal to the lower; banner glabrous, 8–12 mm long, reflexed >50°, usually with a yellow center; wings 9–15 mm long. Legume 10–25 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Montana plants are varieties burkei (S. Wats.) C.L. Hitchc. and humicola (A. Nels.) Barneby.

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).