Pediomelum tenuiflorum

Pediomelum tenuiflorum, the slender-flowered scurfpea, is a perennial herb in the Fabaceae family native to dry prairies and rocky open ground of the central United States. The plant arises from a deep, woody taproot and produces erect, branching stems thirty to ninety centimetres tall, finely glandular-punctate and somewhat hairy. Leaves are palmately compound with three to five narrow, lanceolate leaflets dotted with conspicuous glands that give them a slightly resinous fragrance. From late spring through summer the plant bears small pea-like flowers in elongate racemes; the corolla is pale blue to lavender or sometimes whitish. Each flower produces a small one-seeded legume enclosed in the persistent calyx. The species is drought-tolerant and characteristic of tallgrass and mixedgrass prairie communities, where it serves as forage for grazing animals and pollinator habitat.