Montana Field Guide

Stems absent or erect, 0–15 cm. Herbage villous. Leaflets 15 to 30, ovate to lanceolate. Stipules herbaceous, lanceolate, distinct, 6–12 mm long, basally adnate to the petiole. Inflorescence of 2 to 40 spreading flowers, 5–30 cm long including the peduncle. Flowers white to bluish; calyx white-sericeous and black-strigose; sepals linear, 1–5 mm long; banner 6–10 mm long. Legumes drooping, 1–2 cm long with a short stipe, black- and white-strigose, compressed perpendicular to the grooved upper suture (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Montana plants are variety foliolosa (Hook.) Barneby or variety sericea Torr. & A. Gray.

Stony soil of meadows, woodlands, thickets, fellfields; 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 appositus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus insularis, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Bauer 1983, Shaw and Taylor 1986, Williams et al. 2014, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014).