General: Perennial herb from taproot and branching stem-base, which is often covered with disintegrated stipules; densely tufted, 5-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal, odd-pinnately compound, 3-30 cm long; leaflets 7 to 35 or more, lance-elliptic to oblong, silky or appressed-hairy on both surfaces to nearly glabrous above, 5-30 mm long; stipules membranous, 5-15 mm long, fringed with long hairs along the edges and long-hairy on the lower surface.
Flowers: Inflorescence a spike-like to head-like raceme of 5 to 30 pea-like flowers, the raceme-stalks spreading to erect, to 30 cm long; corollas white to yellowish, sometimes tinged with purple, 10-18 mm long; calyces cylindrical, with mixed grey and black hairs, the triangular to linear teeth 1-3 mm long.
Fruits: Pods, oblong-ellipsoid, erect to spreading, membranous, short-hairy, 1-2.5 cm long, almost 2-chambered, the beak 5 mm long.
Dry to mesic sandy, gravelly or rocky sites, including river bars, terraces, rock outcrops, grassy slopes, meadows, clearings, roadsides, alpine tundra and heath, and open forests in the steppe, montane, subalpine and alpine zones; locally common in SC BC (var. cusickii), rare in SC and SE BC (var. columbiana) and frequent in extreme N BC, the Queen Charlotte Islands and N Vancouver Island (var. varians); var. columbiana - S to WA, ID and MT; var. cusickii - E to SW AB and S to N CO, ID and OR; var. varians - N to AK, YT and NT.
