Lotus utahensis

General: Perennial; stems several, 10-35 cm long, ascending or sometimes decumbent, simple or few-branched; herbage greenish or grayish, strigose; caudex shallowly buried; taprooted. Leaves: Alternate, palmate; leaflets 3-5, oblanceolate, linear, or oblong, 2-24 mm long, 2-5 mm wide, strigose, margins entire; stipules minute, reduced to glands; blades sessile. Flowers: Mostly 1 or 2, sometimes 3 in an umbel; peduncles 2-7 cm long, axillary; calyx 5-8.5 mm long, strigose, the teeth usually shorter than the tube; corolla 8-16 mm long, yellow, suffused with red or bronze-orange; flowers April-June. Fruits: Legume, linear, 2-3.5 cm long, straight or nearly so, strigose to nearly glabrous. Ecology: Open habitats, pinyon-juniper woodlands, ponderosa pine and spruce-fir forests, sandy to stony soils; 1100-2700 m (3500-9000 ft); Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Maricopa, Mohave, and Yavapai counties; southwestern U.S. Notes: na Editor: Springer et al. 2008