Perennial from a spreading, branched caudex. Herbage glabrate to strigillose. Stems ascending, 15–40 cm. Leaves with 11 to 21 linear to oblanceolate leaflets, 6–15 mm long with rounded tips; stipules connate, 3–6 mm long. Inflorescence ca. as long as the leaves, open, of 7 to 20 spreading flowers. Flowers ochroleucus; calyx sparsely black and/or white-strigose; sepals ca. 1 mm long; banner 6–10 mm long, reflexed; keel 5–7 mm long, sometimes purple-tipped. Legume pendent on a stipe 2–3 mm long, narrowly elliptic, 7–15 mm long, flattened, glabrous, purple-mottled (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
Our plants are variety
tenellus.
Often sandy or gravelly soil of grasslands, sagebrush steppe, badlands, river banks; plains, valleys (
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus vagans,
Bombus appositus,
Bombus auricomus,
Bombus bifarius,
Bombus borealis,
Bombus centralis,
Bombus fervidus,
Bombus flavifrons,
Bombus huntii,
Bombus mixtus,
Bombus nevadensis,
Bombus rufocinctus,
Bombus ternarius,
Bombus terricola,
Bombus occidentalis,
Bombus pensylvanicus,
Bombus griseocollis, and
Bombus insularis (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Wilson et al. 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).