Plants winter-annual or peren­nial (short-lived, often flowering first year), clump-forming, (10–)15–30(–55) cm, herbage silvery-canescent, hairs to 0.7–1.2 mm. Stems erect and ascending. Leaves 5–11.5 cm; leaflets (7–)11–17(–21), blades broadly oval to obovate-cuneate or oblong-elliptic, 5–15(–17) mm, apex emarginate, or obtuse and apiculate. Peduncles 3.5–8 cm. Racemes loosely 11–25-flowered, lax and open in fruit; axis (3–)4–10 cm in fruit. Flowers 12.7–14.5 mm; calyx 6.6–7.8 mm, tube 4.5–5.3 mm, lobes 1.7–2.9 mm; corolla pink-purple. Legumes usually mottled, broadly and obliquely ovoid-acuminate, greatly inflated, 16–21 × 9–14 mm, bilocular, stiffly papery, canescent-strigulose; beak 3.5–6 mm, unilocular. Seeds 24–30.

Phenology: Flowering Feb–May.
Habitat: Sandy flats, washes, outwash fans, on dunes, in Larrea belt.
Elevation: -10–400 m.

Distribution

• Generated Map
• Legacy Map

Calif.

Discussion

Variety coachellae occurs at low elevations in and around the Coachella Valley in Riverside County.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.