Branching stems 4–8-inches tall are hairless and topped with moderately dense spikes of small, purple flowers. Note the hairy, feather-like (bearded) calyx lobes crowded in the spike, and the oval bracts beneath the flower with thin, light-colored, membraneous margins.

FLOWER: March–September. Small, pea-like flowers in a cylindrical spike 3/4–2 3/8-inches long (2–6 cm). Flowers have 5 petals: 1 upper banner, 2 side wings, 2 united into the keel; calyx (sepals) densely hairy with feather-like lobes; floral bracts oval, pointed, green with tannish margins, and gland dotted. Pods densely hairy.

LEAVES: Alternate, pinnately compound with 5–11 linear to oblong leaflets, each 5/16–3/4-inch long (8–20 mm); surfaces hairless, gland-dotted on bottom side.

HABITAT: Dry sandy, gravelly soils of roadsides, arroyos, meadows, grasslands; desert grassland and scrub, juniper-oak, ponderosa pine woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,400–8,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM, TX; Mexico.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Purple Prairie-Clover, D. purpurea, in a similar range, has leaves with 3–7 leaflets. Silky Prairie-Clover, D. villosa, in the eastern border counties, has densely hairy stems and 9–17 leaflets.

NM COUNTIES: Southern and western NM in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Catron, Chaves, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Roosevelt,  Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro.