Dalea sabinalis
Rupert C. Barneby
38. Dalea sabinalis (Watson) Shinners
(Plate LIV)
Perennial herbs 2.5-5 (6) dm tall, glabrous up to the ciliolate orifice of the calyces, the smooth or distally striate, sparsely gland-sprinkled but scarcely verruculose stems diffuse or assurgent, at anthesis leafless at base but equably leafy thence up to the solitary terminal spike, a few upper leaf-axils sometimes giving rise to short sterile branchlets, the foliage glaucescent, the thick-textured leaflets smooth above, pallid and finely brown-punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.1-0.6 mm long; stipules linear- caudate, (0.8) 1.2-3.5 mm long, early dry and fragile; intrapetiolular glands minute, impressed, sometimes 0; post-petiolular glands small, prominulous; leaves short- petioled, the main cauline ones 2-4 cm long, with narrowly margined, ventrally grooved rachis and 5-8 pairs of linear-oblanceolate, bluntly gland-mucronulate leaflets 7-15 mm long, the leaves of axillary spurs, if present, shorter, with fewer smaller leaflets; peduncles 6-12 cm long; spikes many-flowered, becoming moderately loose, without petals 6.5-8 mm diam, the spreading-ascending calyces not concealing the glabrous axis, this becoming 4-9 cm long; bracteolar spicules 0.4-0.7 mm long; calyx 3-3.3 mm long, obliquely obovoid-pyriform, glabrous externally, the gray- glaucescent tube glabrous, eglandular, 2.3-2.5 mm, pleated when dry, the recessed dorsal sinus broader than the rest, the 3 ventral teeth narrowly triangular-subulate, the 2 ventral ones deltate-acuminulate, all externally gland-pustulate, minutely ciliolate; petals pink, in size and shape as those of D. bartoni; androecium 5-6 mm long, the column and free filaments of subequal length; pod very obliquely obovoid, ± 3 mm long, the style-base latero-terminal, the short ventral suture concave, the strongly bowed dorsal one slender-keeled around the convex prow, the valves membranous but heavily castaneous-lineolate in lower 1/3 thence firm, minutely gland-verruculose, glabrous except for the minutely ciliolate ventral suture and style-base; seed 1.5-2.1 mm long.— Collections: 4 (o).
Open hillsides on limestone, rare and local around the s. edge of Edwards Plateau in Val Verde, Uvalde, and Bandera counties, in s.-w. Texas.— Flowering April-May.—Material: Texas. Val Verde: 8 2/3 mi. s. of Loma Alta, Cory 41658 (GH); 12 3/4 mi. s. of Loma Alta, Cory 44424 (TEX). Uvalde: "Chalk Bluffs", E. J. Palmer 13337 (US). Bandera: typus.
Dalea sabinalis (Wats.) Shinners, Field & Lab. 17: 83. 1949, based on Petalostemon sabinale (of the type-locality) Wats., Proc. Amer. Acad. 21: 448. 1886 ("Sabinalis"). — "Collected by J. Reverchon in Bandera County, Texas, at the entrance to Sabinal Canon, June, 1885 (n. 45)." —Holotypus, GH! — Kuhnistera sabinalis (Wats.) A. Hell. Bull. Torrey Club 23: 124. 1896.
A rare species, seldom collected and poorly understood, but evidently a close relative of the allopatric Texan D. bartoni and the New Mexican D. scariosa, all having the same asymmetric calyx, glabrous below the ciliolate orifice, and except for the white coloring of D. bartoni, essentially the same perianth. Rydberg and Wemple (under Petalostemon) each associated D. sabinalis with D. foliosa, but I suspect a nearer bond with D. phleoides, in which the asymmetry of the calyx is only a trifle exaggerated; whereas the calyx of D. foliosa is that of D. Candida.
The growth-habit of D. sabinalis, as often in Dalea, is difficult to interpret from herbarium specimens. Wemple (1970, p. 54) describes the stems as erect and they may perhaps sometimes be so, but those of Cory 44424, with their recurved leaves and flexuously incurving spike-axes appear to have been humifuse or assurgent like those of D. scariosa. The point requires study in the field.
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:
