General: Perennial herb from a strong taproot and branched stem-base covered with persistent stipules; tufted, densely silky and long-soft-hairy throughout, to 35 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal, pinnately compound, 10-25 cm long; leaflets 32 to 70 in whorls of 3 to 4 along the axis, lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, 5-25 mm long, long-soft-hairy throughout; stipules membranous, joined to the leaf-stalk for 1/2 of their length, the free ends triangular to long-tailed, hairy on the back with the hairs covering the margins.
Flowers: Inflorescence a spike-like raceme 2-10 cm long, elongating in age, of 20 to 80 pea-like flowers, the raceme-stalks erect, 10-30 cm tall; corollas reddish-purple, 12-15 mm long; calyces cylindric, long-soft-hairy, about 2/3 as long as the corolla, the linear-lanceolate teeth about 1/3 the length of the tube.
Fruits: Pods, egg-shaped to cylindric, 10-17 mm long, narrowed to a beak 3 mm long, somewhat papery, grooved on both sutures, long-soft-hairy, more or less 1-chambered.
Dry meadows, grasslands, gravel bars and cutbanks, river terraces, clearings and open forests in the steppe and montane zones; frequent in NE BC, infrequent in SE BC; N to AK, YT and NT, E to MB and S to MN, ND and NM.
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)
