Branching stems covered with tiny, flat-lying hairs reach 16 inches tall. The small pea-like flowers age from yellow to red and produce slender pods. Note the leaves have 3-5 narrow leaflets that grow from a single point (palmately compound).

FLOWER: June–August. Pea-type flower with 5 petals: 1 upper banner petal and 2 side petals that cup a pointed keel made of 2 petals. Petals are yellow, often tinged red or with thin red lines, and turn from yellow to red with age; 1–5 small, leaf-like bracts grow below the flower. Fruit is a narrow, straight to slightly curved pod, 1–1 3/8 inches long (25–34 mm).

LEAVES: Alternate, palmately compound with 3–5 leaflets attached at a point, usually sessile (stalkless) or nearly so, making them appear to grow directly from the stem. Leaflets are narrow, linear to linear-oblong, 1/4–7/8 inch long (6–20 mm); tips pointed, surfaces covered with tiny flat-lying (appressed) hairs.

HABITAT: Dry sandy, rocky soils, pastures, hillsides, open forests; foothills, mountains; pine-oak woodlands, ponderosa forests.

ELEVATION: 5,700–9,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: New Mexico Bird’s Foot Trefoil, A. oroboides (Lotus plebeius), in desert scrub and dry pine forest habitats, tends to have prostrate stems, and has elliptic to oval leaflets with least one attached slightly below the other leaflets.

NM COUNTIES: Western 2/3rds of NM in mid- to high-elevation, dry, wooded habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Valencia.