General: Annual herb from a taproot; stems 1 to several, decumbent to erect, glabrous, 10-60 cm long/tall.
Leaves: Alternate, palmately compound; leaflets 3, heart- or egg-shaped to oblanceolate, 5-20 mm long, the margins finely bristle-toothed; stipules egg-shaped, the upper deeply cut.
Flowers: Inflorescence a dense, head-like cluster of 3 to 5 pea-like flowers, the heads 1-2 cm wide, on stalks longer than the leaves, set in wheel-like, irregularly lobed and jaggedly toothed involucres; corollas purple with white tips and brown with age, 5-10 mm long; calyces slightly shorter than the corollas, the tube narrowly bell-shaped, 10- to 25-veined, the teeth longer than the tube, awl-shaped and bristle-tipped.
Fruits: Pods, usually rupturing the calyx when mature; seeds 1 to 2.
Vernally moist to dry, often sandy, fields, grassy meadows, roadsides, ditches and clearings in the lowland zone; locally frequent in SW BC, rare in SC BC; S to MT, UT and CA.
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)
