General: Perennial herb from a slender taproot; stems branching from the base, creeping to erect, often rooting at the nodes, often mat-forming as a pioneer, 10-60 cm long, glabrous or sparsely hairy.
Leaves: Alternate or clustered, palmately compound, the leaf-stalks longer than the leaflets; leaflets 3, egg-shaped, rounded with a notch at the tip, 1-2.5 cm long, often with a pale blotch, fine-toothed; stipules 3-10 mm long, joined for most of their length, white-membranous, pointy-tipped.
Flowers: Inflorescence a dense, globe-shaped, axillary head, 1.5-2.5 cm wide, of numerous, spreading to nodding, pea-like flowers, the heads on long (to 30 cm) stalks, lacking involucres; corollas creamy white to pinkish, 5-10 mm long; calyces glabrous, 1/2 the length of the corollas, the tube bell-shaped and white with green veins, the narrowly lanceolate, pointy-tipped teeth shorter than to as long as the tube.
Fruits: Pods, oblong, about 5 mm long; seeds 1 to 4.
Mesic to dry roadsides, fields, lawns, meadows and waste places in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common in BC S of 55o N, rare northward; 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)
