Silver lotus is a prostrate, many-branched, densely silvery-wooly perennial.  There are 3-7 broadly oblanceolate to obovate leaflets that are somewhere between pinnately and palmately arranged with silky straight to tangled hairs.  The flowers are in sessile umbels of 3-8 flowers each, papilionaceous, with a villous, 5-toothed calyx and a yellow 3/8"-long corolla.  There are 9 united stamens and 1 free.  The fruit is a short, somewhat arcuate, indehiscent, 1-seeded pod and covered with a silky pubescence. Silver lotus occupies dry hills and rocky places in chaparral and coastal sage scrub, canyons and openings in woodlands, ranging from cismontane s. California to the desert edge, below 5000'.  It blooms mostly from April to July, and there are several sub-species.  These pictures were taken on the Backbone Trail above Malibu Creek State Park in the Santa Monica Mts.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Acmispon 2) argophyllus.
Pronunciation: ak-MIS-pon ar-go-FIL-lus.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.
Formerly Lotus argophyllus var. argophyllus