This small perennial herb, with its dark green, bushy, fine-leaved 

 herbage and bright yellow and red flowers, is found scattering^ 

 from southern Utah and southern Colorado through New Mexico 

 and Arizona, on sandy, gravelly, or clay soils, in dry parks, open 

 ridges, or in open stands of timber. It ranges in altitude from 

 the upper woodland type up through the ponderosa pine and into 

 the lower spruce-fir belt. When plentiful, red-and-yellow-pea is 

 often a range plant of considerable importance at least in the 

 Southwest, where its palatability averages high for all classes of 

 livestock, but especially for sheep. In southern Colorado and Utah 

 it is not so extensively grazed. It grows commonly only 4 to 12 

 inches tall; the leaves, though small, are delicate and numerous. 

 Being a legume, its proportion of nitrogenous matter is relatively 

 high ; it appears to be particularly appetizing during the latter part 

 of the growing season, when the pods are formed. Deer and prob- 

 ably other herbivorous wild life graze it readily. The deep woody 

 taproot draws moisture and food material from considerable depths, 

 assisting the plant to withstand drought and abuse; even so, how- 

 ever, the species is disappearing from a number of overgrazed South- 

 western ranges. 



