Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs from taproots.

Stems: Stems prostrate, rooting at the nodes, often mat–forming, 1–4 dm long, glabrous or sparsely pubescent.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Leaflets obcordate to obovate or elliptic, (6–)10–25 mm long, (6–)10–15 mm wide. Leaflet surfaces bright green with pale or dark marks along veins, or both. Margins denticulate or serrate. Lateral veins ending at margins. Petiolate. Stipules membranous, oblong, Adnate to petioles ca. 2/3 their length in younger stages only, later ripped away from petioles but still surrounding the stem, contracted into the subulate apex.

Flowers: Flowers in heads, axillary, loosely globose, (15–)20–25(–30) mm in diameter, peduncles 50–150(–200) mm long. Flowers papilionaceous; pedicels 1–2 mm long, reflexing and elongating to 5–6 mm long in fruit, bracts elliptic, bracteoles absent. Calyx tube 2–3 mm long, 10–nerved, glabrous, the throat open, glabrous, the teeth subequal, deltate, 2–3 mm long. Corolla white or pink, becoming brown, 6–12 mm long. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct, the other 9 connate into a tube.

Fruit: Pods oblong–linear; slightly exserted from calyx. Seeds (2)3–4; yellowish brown; ovoid or reniform; 1–1.3 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 16; 22; 28; 30; 32; 48; 64

Habitat: Pastures; lawns; and along roadsides and trails.

Elevation Range: 720–2,530 m.