General: Hairy Prairie Clover (Dalea mollis) is a prostrate desert annual forb with green (not grey-green) leaves divided into leaflets. The leaflets might have small, dark spots, and the leaflet margins are more-or-less entire. The pea-type flowers are white with feathery structures (calyx lobes) that do not extend as far as the tips of the flower petals.

A more common species of Prairie Clover, Soft Prairie Clover (Dalea mollissima) looks similar except that the leaf color is gray-green, the leaf margins are wavy, and the feathery structures (calyx lobes) extend to, or beyond, the tips of the flower petals.

Hairy Prairie Clover is an uncommon component of vegetation communities on desert flats and on bajadas in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub) life zones.

Family: Fabaceae (Legume).

Other Names:

Plant Form: Annual herb, spreading.

Height: To a few inches.

Stems: Becoming reddish and red-gland dotted.

Leaves: Leaves are odd-pinnate (one leaflet at the tip) with 8-14 leaflets, each 3-10 mm long. Leaflets generally folded, and the margins are not shallowly lobed or wavy. Upper side of leaves usually without small, dark spots on the edges; underside with dark spots.

Flowers: Blooms in spring; also during fall when conditions are right. Inflorescences is a densely flowered raceme. Pea-type flowers white with purple towards the tips. Feathery structures (calyx lobes) surround each flower but do not extend as far as, or beyond, the tips of the flower petals.

Seeds:

Habitat: Dry, well-drained sandy and gravelly soils on bajadas and moderate slopes.

Elevation: Less than 2,500 ft.

Distribution: California to southwestern Utah and western Arizona, and south into northern Mexico.

Comments: Uncommon on roadsides in gravely soils.