Plants perennial, 2.5–12 cm. Stems prostrate or decumbent. Leaves 1–5 cm; leaflets (7–)11–19, mostly conduplicate, blades elliptic-oblanceolate, oval, or obovate, 1.5–7 mm, apex obtuse or emarginate. Peduncles 0.6–2.5 cm. Racemes shortly and loosely (2 or)3–9-flowered, short and compact in fruit; axis 0.3–1.5 cm in fruit. Flowers 9.3–11.3 mm; calyx 4.1–5.3 mm, tube 3.5–4.6 mm, lobes 0.6–1.2 mm; corolla whitish or suffused purplish. Legumes in loose or compact, humistrate clusters, pale green or stramineous, purple-mottled, becoming brownish, globose or very broadly and plumply ovoid or obovoid, bladdery-inflated, 6–13 × 6–10 mm, papery, subtranslucent, sparsely and loosely strigulose; beak linear- or subulate-tubular, cusplike, bilocular. Seeds (7–)10–18.

Phenology: Flowering Jun–Jul.
Habitat: Dry, gravelly or sandy slopes and flats, with sagebrush, in lodgepole pine forests on granite, with bristlecone pine, on limestone.
Elevation: (1900–)2300–3100 m.

Distribution

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Calif., Nev.

Discussion

The relatively small fruit size of var. kernensis coupled with a narrow, tubular beak resembling a persistent style are the main features of this delicate, montane plant. It is locally plentiful in two widely separate and restricted areas: the Kern Plateau just west of the Sierra Nevada crest in Tulare County, California, and about the summit of Charleston Peak in Clark County, Nevada.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.