General: Biennial or annual herb from a strong taproot, sweet-scented in drying; stems erect, 0.5-2 m tall, freely branched, glabrous to sparsely short-hairy.
Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compound; leaflets 3, elliptic-oblong to egg-shaped, short-hairy to glabrous, 1-4 cm long, the margins fine-toothed to near the base; stipules entire or with 1-3 basal teeth, 5-10 mm long, joined at the base to the leaf stalk.
Flowers: Inflorescence a slender, spike-like, axillary raceme of 20 to 50 or more pea-like flowers, the racemes 3-15 cm long, on stalks from shorter to longer than the leaves; corollas yellow, 5-7 mm long, the banner and wings equal to or longer than the keel; calyces bell-shaped, the tube 1-2 mm long, the teeth narrowly lance- to awl-shaped, as long as the tube.
Fruits: Pods, egg-shaped, somewhat flattened but still plump, nodding, 3-5 mm long, somewhat leathery, glabrous, cross-ribbed, 1-chambered; seeds 1 or 2.
Mesic to dry fields, roadsides and waste places; frequent in S half of BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, rare to the W and N; introduced from Eurasia.
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)
