Montana Field Guide

Low perennial from a usually simple or branched caudex, sometimes forming small mats. Stems simple, ascending, 1 cm or less, clothed in stipules. Leaves mostly basal; lower petioles 2–8 cm long; leaflets 5 to 9 sericeous to villous, 1–2 cm long with acute tips. Racemes dense, 2–5 cm long, hidden by the leaves. Flowers blue; calyx tube 1–2 mm long sericeous, not spurred; sepals ca. 1 mm long; upper lip bilobed, 3–5 mm long; lower lip nearly entire; banner 5–8 mm long, glabrous, reflexed <45°; wings 7–10 mm long. Legume ca. 1 cm long
(Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Our plants are variety utahensis (S. Wats.) C.L. Hitchc.

Moist, stony soil of meadows, streambanks, grasslands; montane to alpine (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 bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Bauer 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).