General: Annual herb from fibrous roots; stems 1 to several, decumbent to erect, 10-70 cm long, long wavy-hairy.
Leaves: Alternate, palmately compound; leaflets 3, wedge-egg-shaped, notched at the tip, 1-2.5 cm long; stipules egg-shaped, sometimes bristle-tipped, fine-toothed, green, 1/2 as long as the leaflets.
Flowers: Inflorescence a dense, globe-shaped, long-stalked head, 5-10 mm wide, of 7 to 60 pea-like flowers, the heads set in long-hairy, cup-shaped, lobe-margined involucres, the lobes papery-edged and mostly not toothed but bristle-tipped; corollas pink to white, brown in age, 3-6 mm long; calyces hairy, 4-7 mm long, the awl-shaped teeth bristle-tipped, equalling or longer than the 10-veined tube and the lower teeth often surpassing the corolla.
Fruits: Pods, egg-shaped to ellipsoid, 2-3 mm long, usually rupturing the calyces at maturity; seeds 1 or 2.
Moist to dry, open meadows, clearings, streambanks and grassy slopes in the lowland and steppe zones; locally frequent in SW BC, infrequent in SC BC; S to MT, NV, AZ and MX.
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)
