General:
Perennial herb from a branching stem-base densely covered with old, brownish leaf-stalks and stipules; tufted, to 15 cm tall.

Leaves:
Basal, odd-pinnately compound, 3-14 cm long; leaflets 9 to 21, egg-shaped to lance-oblong, 3-15 mm long, sparsely soft-hairy; stipules 12-20 mm long, long-tailed at the tip, becoming brown with age, fused and joined to the leaf-stalk below, the free margins fringed with long hairs.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a somewhat head-like raceme of 5 to 12 pea-like flowers, the racemes 1-4 cm long on erect to ascending stalks 4-15 cm long; corollas yellow to whitish, 13-17 mm long; calyces short-cylindric, woolly with dark and light hairs, the tube 5-6 mm long, the teeth 1.5-3 mm long.

Fruits:
Pods, egg-shaped to ellipsoid, abruptly beaked, 1.5-2.5 cm long, soft-hairy, incompletely 2-chambered.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Oxytropis campestris subsp. melanocephala Hook.
Oxytropis campestris var. glabrata Hook.
Oxytropis glabrata (Hook.) A. Nels.
Oxytropis maydelliana subsp. melanocephala (Hook.) Porsild