General: Perennial herb from a creeping rhizome; stems erect to trailing, 15-100 cm tall/long, angled but not winged, soft-hairy.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound with 4 to 10 mostly paired leaflets; leaflets narrowly egg-shaped to lance-elliptic, 2-12 cm long, 0.2-3 cm wide; tendrils usually well developed and branched, at least some grasping; stipules 2-lobed, lanceolate to linear, less than 1/2 as long as the leaflets.
Flowers: Inflorescence a loose, stalked, axillary cluster of 2 to 7 pea-like flowers; corollas usually bluish-purple or reddish-purple, fading to tan, 13-27 mm long, the banner darker than the wings or keel, about as long as the wings and 1-3 mm longer than the keel, the banner-claw shorter than the blade; calyces 6-12 mm long, somewhat hairy, the lanceolate teeth about 1/2 as long as the tube.
Fruits: Pods, 3-7 cm long, 4-9 mm wide, glabrous; seeds 4 to 12.
Mesic to dry, open forests (deciduous, coniferous, and mixed), glades and meadows in the lowland and montane zones; common in C (between 52o and 56o N) and SW BC, locally frequent in SC and SE BC, absent on the Queen Charlotte Islands, N Vancouver Island and the adjacent coast; S to CA.
Ecological Framework for Lathyrus nevadensis var. nevadensis
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
