Dalea ornata
Rupert C. Barneby
33. Dalea ornata (Douglas) Eaton & Wright
(Plate LII)
Coarsely leafy perennial herb from a tough brown root and short caudex, (2) 2.5-5 dm tall, glabrous to the inflorescence, the several stout, erect or decumbent- incurved, pale green or stramineous, prominently ribbed, microtuberculate stems either simple except for axillary spurs or paniculately branched from (near) above middle, the foliage bicolored, the thick-textured leaflets yellowish (when dry sometimes verdigris) green above, pallid-glaucescent and livid-punctate beneath; leaf- spurs almost 0 to 1 mm long; stipules subulate, 0.5-2.5 mm long, early papery and fragile, greenish-stramineous externally, livid-glandular within; intrapetiolular glands minute; post-petiolular glands prominent, obtuse; leaves petioled, the primary cauline ones 2.5-5.5 (6.5) cm long, with narrowly thick-margined rachis and 5-7 (9) broadly oblanceolate or elliptic-oblanceolate to broadly obovate, obtuse, sometimes gland-mucronate, or emarginate, flat or loosely folded leaflets up to 7-22 mm long, the stalked terminal leaflet always largest, the leaves of axillary spurs similar but smaller; peduncles 1-11 cm long; spikes very dense, ovoid becoming oblong-cylindroid, or the smaller lateral ones subglobose, without petals 13-16 mm diam, the calyces (pressed) appearing ± 5-8-ranked on each side, the densely pilose to glabrescent or truly glabrous axis (1) 1.5-5 (6) cm long; bracts organically deciduous at anthesis, but held fast between the calyces and falling with them, (3) 4-7.5 (8.5) mm long, subdimorphic, the lowest lanceolate, firm from base, the interfloral ones proximally narrowed downward, folded, and membranous, thence lanceolate, livid, dorsally pilose, tapering into a subulate or setaceous tip; calyx (3.6) 3.9-6.3 (6.7) mm long, pilose from base upward or sometimes only on the teeth with fine straight spreading- ascending, lustrous hairs up to (0.8) 1-2 (2.2) mm long, the broadly top-shaped tube (2.4) 2.7-3.6 (3.8) mm long, not or scarcely recessed behind banner, the ribs filiform, not or scarcely prominent, the membranous pallid intervals charged with 2-9 small, transparent or yellow blister-glands, the teeth of about equal length (but either dorsal or ventral sometimes longest), up to (1) 1.2-2.9 mm long, not greatly dissimilar in shape, the 3 dorsal ones ovate, triangular, or lanceolate, the ventral pair deltate to ovate-lanceolate, their plane tips green or livid; petals rose-purple or pale lilac, exceptionally white, glandless; banner 7-9 mm long, the claw 3.9-5 mm, the ovate or ovate-oblong, emarginate blade broadly cuneate to truncate, rarely subcordate at base, 3.3-4.5 mm long, (2) 2.3-4 mm wide; epistemonous petals 4.5-6.6 mm long, oblong-oblanceolate, the claw 1.3-1.8 (2) mm, the blades (3.3) 3.5-5 mm long, 1.4-2 mm wide; androecium (7.3) 7.7-12 mm long, the column 2.6-5 mm, the pinkish free filaments up to (3.6) 4.7-7.6 mm, the anthers yellow 1-1.4 mm long; pod 3-3.5 mm long, obliquely compressed-obovoid, the ventral suture slightly concave, the dorsal strongly convex, the style-base latero-terminal, the prow slenderly carinate, the valves glabrous and hyaline in lower 1/3-2/3, distally thin-papery, pilosulous, finely gland-sprinkled; seed 2-2.4 mm long; n = 7 (Spellenberg, Taxon 20: 355). —Collections: 38 (iii).
Sandy and shaley barrens, rocky ridges, gullied bluffs and knolls, often among sagebrush, of local and discontinuous dispersal in the Snake-Columbia basin w. of the Cascades, and n.-w. Great Basin: at 100-1260 m (± 350-4200 ft) along Snake River and immediate affluents in s.-w. Idaho (Elmore and Owyhee County, downstream to Weiser) and adjoining Oregon, reappearing near the mouth of Clearwater River in extreme s.-e. Washington, and around the Great Bend of Columbia River, n. in Washington to Moses Lake, s. and w. in Oregon along the Columbia itself and up its s. affluents to lower Deschutes River; disjunctly, at ± 1350 m around basin lakes of Lake County, Oregon; and at 1500-1830 m (5000-6100 ft) around the w. margin of Lahontan Basin in Lyon, Storey, and extreme s. Washoe counties, w.-centr. Nevada; cf. Wemple, 1970, map 13. — Flowering May to July. — Representative: Washington: Hitchcock & Muhlick 21,851 (NY, UC); C. L. Hitchcock 22,593 (NY, UC); J. W. Thompson 9256 (NY). Oregon: Peck 17,425 (NY), 21,222 (NY, UC), 25,736 (UC); Cronquist 6499 (NY), 7246 (NY, UC); Eggleston 6841 (NY). Idaho: Nelson & Mac- bride 1136 (NY, UC); Maguire & Holmgren 26,229 (NY, UC); Barneby 15,065 (CAS, I A, NY, US); Ripley & Barneby 6146 (NY). Nevada: Alexander & Kellogg 5306 (UC); T. C. Adams 111 (UC).
Dalea ornata (Douglas) Eaton & Wright, N. Amer. Bot. 219. 1840 ("ornatum"), based on Petalostemum ornatum (adorned, showy) Douglas ex Hook., Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 128. 1831.— ...on the arid Prairies near the Blue Mountains of Lewis River, North-West America." — Holotypus, labelled "common on the barrens of the Columbia near the junction of Lewis and Clark’s [= Snake] river", K (herb. Hook.)! isotypus, K (herb. Benth.)!—The specimen at GL cited by Wemple (1970, p. 66) is doubtless an isotypus also.— Kuhniastera ornata (Dougl.) O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 192. 1891.
Petalostemon lagopus (hare’s-foot, of the softly pilose spike) Rydberg, N. Amer. Fl. 24: 134. 1920.— "Type collected at Truckee Pass, Washoe County, Nevada, June 14, 1906, [P. B.] Kennedy 1316..." — Holotypus, NY, isotypi, UC, US!
P. ornatus fma. pallidus (pale, an albino variant) St. John, Northwest. Sci. 2: 86. 1928.—"Washington: sandy flats, Plymouth, Benton Co., June 21, 1927, H. St. John & L. A. Mullen 8644..." — Holotypus, WSC, not seen, but verified by Wemple, 1970.
A sturdy, rather coarsely leafy herb with glaucescent foliage of thick texture and handsome, pink-tasselled knobs of flower, D. ornata is the only member of the genus native in the Columbia-Snake River basin, to which it would be endemic except for outliers in the lake region of transmontane Oregon and in a small disjunct area in west-central Nevada. Unlike the calciphile D. searlsiae, which replaces it southward from northeast and central Nevada, D. ornata is characteristic of soft clay and sandy soils derived from weathering of basalt and volcanic ash. I follow Wemple (1970, p. 66) in the traditional interpretation of the species and in reduction of P. lagopus Rydb., originally differentiated by relatively broad and short interfloral bracts, a feature found not only in Nevada but sporadically northward. The thin-textured calyces, ordinarily pilose with long shining hairs and compressed into a dense cylindric head, readily distinguish D. ornata from D. searlsiae. At its most northerly known station near Moses Lake in Grant County, Washington, D. ornata is represented by a notable variant (St. John et al. 4970, UC) with inflorescence wholly glabrous except for a minute rudiment of vesture inside the calyx-teeth. A similar variant of D. flavescens is noted under that species.
Already well illustrated by Abrams (1944, fig. 2770) and by Hitchcock et al, Vase. Pl. Pac. N.-W. 2: opp. p. 346. 1961.
References: [Article] 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.Multimedia:
