Dalea scariosa

Rupert C. Barneby

36.  Dalea scariosa Watson

(Plate LIII)

Diffuse perennial herbs from a stout woody root and shortly forking caudex, glabrous up to the puberulent inflorescence, the decumbently radiating and assurgent, striate-angular, pale green or stramineous, gland-tuberculate stems 2-7 dm long, freely branching into fan-shaped sprays, the spikes mostly terminal to branchlets, the foliage pallid, thick-textured, the leaflets yellow-green above, glaucous and punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.2-0.6 mm long; stipules triangular-subulate, 0.2-1.5 mm long, early becoming papery, castaneous, deciduous; intrapetiolular glands 0; post-petiolular glands prominent, obtuse; leaves slender-petioled, 1-2.5 cm long, the tuberculate rachis narrowly thick-margined, the leaflets (2) 3-4 pairs, obovate-cuneate, emarginate, loosely folded, 3-8 mm long; peduncles 0.5-4 (5) cm long; spikes moderately loose or early becoming so, the calyces (pressed) falling into 2-3 ranks, at first narrowly ovoid becoming cylindric or catkinlike, without petals or androecia 9-11 mm diam, the puberulent axis at length 1.5-9 (13) cm long; bracts early deciduous, elliptic- or ovate-acuminate, 2.5-5 mm long, dry and brownish with minutely lacerate scarious margins, dorsally glabrous and sparsely glandular, ciliolate; calyx 4-5.8 mm long, in profile obovate-pyriform, glabrous except for the internally short-pilosulous teeth and orifice, the tube 3-3.8 mm long, recessed behind banner, plicate at the narrow base but (when fresh) only low-ribbed and not corrugated distally, the ribs subfiliform, immersed distally, the intervals pale green, herbaceous, charged with one row of 3-5 (or the ventral pair with 2-3 rows of several) golden or reddish blister- glands, the teeth of ± equal length, 1.1-2 mm long, the dorsal one and lateral pair subulate, the ventral pair broadly triangular- or deltate-apiculate, all spurless; petals all lilac-pink or pale rose-purple, the banner sometimes charged with a subapical gland; banner 7.2-8 mm long, the claw 3.2-3.8 mm, the suborbicular-cordate, distally hooded and shallowly emarginate blade ± 4- 4.5 mm long and wide; wings 4.2-4.4 mm long, the claw 0.4-0.5 mm, the obovate blade 3.7-4 mm long, 2-2.2 mm wide; keel-petals ± 4.8 mm long, the claw 0.7-1.1 mm, the oblong-obovate blade 3.74 mm long, ±1.8 mm wide; androecium 5 (according to Standley sometimes 6)- merous, 8.5-9.8 mm long, the column 3.5-4.5 mm, the free filaments up to 5-5.4 mm long, pinkish; pod 3.2-4 mm long, in profile half-obovate, the ventral suture concavely and the dorsal one strongly convexly arched, the valves in lower third subhyaline, thence papery, pale-green, gland-sprinkled, glabrous except for a short beard along ventral suture and base of style; seed 2.3-3 mm long; 2n = 14 (Mosquin).— Collections: 4 (i).

Gullied sand and cobblestone bluffs along the upper Rio Grande, at ± 1460-1510 m (4900-5030 ft), local, known only from the neighborhood of Albuquerque and Belen, Bernalillo and Valencia counties, New Mexico. — Flowering August and September. — Material: New Mexico. Bernalillo: Albuquerque, Rusby in 1909 (NY, 3 sheets); typi of D. scariosa and Petalostemon prostratus. Valencia: Belen, Barneby 13,842 (CAS, DAO, GH, IA, MEXU, MICH, NY, US).

Dalea scariosa (scarious, of the bracts) Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. 17: 369. 1882.— "Near Albuquerque, New Mexico; Rev. E. L. Greene, 1877. — Holotypus, GH! isotypus (fragm), NY!— Parosela scariosa (Wats.) A. Hell., Cat. N. Amer. Pl., ed 2, 6. 1900; Rydb., N. Amer. Fl. 24: 94. 1920, as comb. nov. Petalostemon scariosum (Wats.) Wemple, Iowa State Jour. Sci. 45 (1): 38, map 4. 1970.

Petalostemon prostratum (prone, of the stems) Wooton & Standley, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 16: 138. 1913.— "Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 370697, collected near Albuquerque in 1909 by Winnie Harward (no. 17)." — Holotypus, so labelled, US!

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.

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