Errazurizia multifoliolata (Clos) I.M.Johnst.
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Authors
Rupert C. Barneby
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Authority
Barneby, Rupert C. 1977. Daleae Imagines, an illustrated revision of Errazurizia Philippi, Psorothamnus Rydberg, Marine Liebmann, and Dalea Lucanus emen. Barneby, including all species of Leguminosae tribe Amorpheae Borissova ever referred to Dalea. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 27: 1-892.
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Family
Fabaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
"[ Coquimbo: ]...en el camino de Arqueros..." — Holotypus, presumably P, not examined; isotypi, labelled "Chili, Cl Gay 272", F, NY (both ex hb. P)!
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Synonyms
Psoralea multifoliolata Clos, Errazurizia glandulifera Phil.
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Description
Species Description - Procumbent, loosely straggling or diffuse, softly woody, resinously malodorous subshrubs forming masses of entangled stems up to 1.5 m diam but less than half as tall, the young stems and leaf-rachis densely villous-tomentulose with sinuous, subappressed and ascending hairs up to 0.3-0.55 mm long and charged with many subglobose, grainlike orange glands emergent from the vesture, the herbage greenish-cinereous, the leaflets pubescent both sides, gland-sprinkled beneath; stipules linear-subulate, (1.5) 2-4.5 mm long, firm but not spinescent, castaneous, thinly strigulose or distally glabrate, when young tipped with a caducous gland; post- and intrapetiolular glands grainlike; leaves 2-8 cm long, short-petioled, with 5-10 (11) pairs of oblong-oblanceolate to obovate or oblong-elliptic, retuse, obtuse, or truncate and gland-apiculate, shortly petiolulate leaflets 2-10 mm long; peduncles 1-4 cm long; spikes narrow, loosely 15-75-flowered, the ascending flowers all separated or some irregularly clustered, the axis becoming 5-20 cm long; bracts persistent or tardily deciduous, resembling stipules, 1.5-4 mm long; bracteoles represented by sessile glands; calyx 4.3-5.3 mm long, thinly gray-pilosulous, the tube 2.4-3 mm long, 2.5-3 mm diam, prominently 11-ribbed, the rib leading to the dorsal sinus double, the firm intervals charged with 1 row of ± 3-5 small blister-glands, the ovate, obtuse or gland-mucronate and thus subacute teeth all similar but the dorsal one slightly longer than the rest, 2-2.5 mm long; petals yellow, subcarnosulous, the banner densely pubescent dorsally, sometimes thinly so within, the inner petals glabrous; banner broadly oblong-obovate, 4.5-5 mm long, 2.1-2.6 mm wide, emarginate, around the apex involute; wings only a trifle shorter, obliquely oblanceolate, the blade separated from the claw by an obscure auricle; keel 4.1-5 mm long, the claws 1.8-2.5 mm, the obliquely triangular blades 1.7-2.5 mm long, 1.6-1.8 mm wide; androecium 9-merous, 4 mm long, the filaments unequal, the longest free for ± 2 mm, the yellow anthers 0.5-0.6 mm long; style stout, 1.3-2.2 mm long, somewhat dorsoventrally compressed at base and laterally so at apex, abruptly incurved below the stigma and charged dorsally at the bend with a large gland; ovules 2, not exactly collateral; pod ± 4 mm long, obovoid, nearly glabrous or thinly pilose distally, charged with many large purple-brown glands; seed (little known) ± 3.1-3.6 mm long.—Collections: 9 (o).
Distribution and Ecology - Barren hills, in fog desert, along the coast of n. Chile between Rio Elqui, Coquimbo, and s. Antofagasta (lat. ± 24° 50'-30° S); reported, probably by error, from Concepcion (37° S) by Bridges (no. 1290, K). — Flowering November to January.
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Discussion
A species quite isolated in the Chilean flora and there unmistakable. The generic resemblance to North American D. megacarpa is close, especially in the nature of the softly woody stems, the long narrow spikes of flowers, the yellow petals, the pubescent clawless banner, and the stout incurved style charged abaxially shortly below the stigma with a prominent gland such as occurs also in some species of Eysenhardtia. The Chilean errazurizia differs from its congeners principally in the more obviously asymmetric corolla, which makes some approach to a conventional papilionaceous form; but the androecium is not concealed by a true carina but rather nestles in the open gutter formed by the two loosely adherent leaves of the keel. Rydberg (1928, p. 428, PL XXVII N) considered that separation of a monotypic Errazurizia from Psorobatus (Rydberg, 1928, PL XXVII M) was a matter of taste, but E. multifoliolata seems much more closely related to North American E. megacarpa than either of these is to the generitype of Psorobatus, E. benthami. The transcendent interest of E. multifoliolata in the context of its genus and tribe is its geographic isolation in the southern hemisphere. Seeds of errazurizia are massive and sink like stones in water. The desert habitats of the species make dispersal by migratory birds unlikely. It appears more probable that the errazurizias represent dispersed elements of an ancient desert flora which had at some period in the past an overland connecting pathway, perhaps along the west foothills of the emergent Andean-Sierra Madrean axis, the same pathway that must have once connected the Larrea deserts of the northern and southern hemispheres. In the introduction I present the hypothesis that the tribe Amorpheae is of Sierra- Madrean origin, and that its primitive members or immediate ancestors had non-papilio- naceous flowers which survive in Eysenhardtia, Apoplanesia, and some North American Errazurizia. It is of interest in this connection to note that E. multifoliolata, which because of its incipiently papilionaceous corolla ought to be, ex hypothesi, an advanced member of its group, is also the member which exists today furthest from the supposed center of origin. A chromosome count for E. multifoliolata would be of greatest interest. The plant is finely illustrated by Munoz, Sinopsis FL Chil. lam. CLV. 1959.
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Distribution
Antofagasta Chile South America| Atacama Chile South America| Coquimbo Chile South America|