It is endemic to California, where it is known only from a small section of the northern Sierra Nevada foothills on the border between Butte and Tehama Counties.

[3] It is a perennial herb approaching a meter in height with slender, leafy branches.

The leaves are each made up of three lance-shaped or oval, pointed leaflets measuring up to 9 centimeters long.

The inflorescence is a clustered raceme of several whitish or yellowish pealike flowers.

Each flower has a tubular calyx of sepals and a corolla spreading to about a centimeter in width.