Narratives – The Barneby Catalogue

Dalea purpurea var. purpure

46a. Dalea purpurea Ventenat var. purpurea

(Plate LVIII)

Stems 2-9 dm tall; foliage glabrous, puberulent, thinly pilose, or densely gray- tomentulose; peduncles mostly very short, rarely up to 1 dm long; spikes 9.5-12 mm diameter; 2n — 14 (Wemple, 1970, p. 12). — Collections: 239 (vi).

Prairies, prairie-bluffs, and glades in oak-cedar barrens, occasionally on alluvial river-sands, inland dunes, and lake-shores, intolerant of shade but adaptable to diverse soils, from heavy chernozems of high-grass prairie to thin stony loams of the western Plains, especially vigorous on but not confined to sedimentary bedrock, the petals sometimes more vividly colored on limestone, common, locally abundant, and widespread on the Atlantic slope from Alberta, where extending n. to Fort Saskatchewan and w. into the foothills up to 1300 m (4330 ft), s. to the Rio Grande valley in Santa Fe and Sandoval counties, New Mexico, in Colorado reaching 1800 m (6000 ft) or on Mesa de Maya 2240 m (7800 ft), e. through the Saskatchewan and Qu’- Appelle valleys to Red River in s. Manitoba, the s.-w. shores of Lake Michigan and centr. Illinois, the Ohio valley in Kentucky (Nelson County), and discontinuously to s.-w. Alabama, centr. Louisiana, s. over the central Plains to Red River in Oklahoma and weakly in Texas to the n. edge of Edwards Plateau; collected as a roadside immigrant in n.-centr. Arizona, and reported (Wemple, 1970, map 15) from one disjunct station (native ?) in trans-Pecos Texas.— Flowering May to August s.-ward, rarely later, from mid-June on the high plains. — Citation of representative material of this widely familiar species superfluous.

Dalea purpurea (purple, of the petals) Ventenat, Descr. Pl. Cels, Pl. 40. 1800.— Plante...decouverte par Michaux dans le pays des Illinois." — Holotypus, a specimen presumably cultivated in hort. Cels, from Michaux’s seed, G (not examined, but verified by Wemple, 1970, p. 87), the protologue and accompanying plate in any case decisive.—Psoralea purpurea (Vent.) MacM., Metasp. Minn. Vail. 329. 1892. Petalostemon purpureum (Vent.) Rydb., Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 1 (Fl. Mont.): 238. 1900.

Dalea violacea (violet-colored) Michaux ex Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 3: 337. 1802.— Holotypus, B (herb. Willd.), not seen but derived from and duplicated in herb. Michx. (v. sequ.) and verified by Wemple, 1970. Petalostemum violaceum Michaux, Fl. Bor. Amer. 2: 50, tab. 37, fig. 2. 1803, a proposition independent of Willdenow but best treated as an inadvertent derivative of the last. — Specimina authent., P (herb. Michx.)! —Kuhnistera violacea (Michx.) Ait. ex Steud., Nomencl. ed. 2, 1: 851. 1840.

Petalostemon mollis (soft, of the vesture) Rydberg, Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 1 (Fl. Mont.): 238. 1900. — "Montana. Snowy Mts., 1882, Canby; Hound Creek, 1883, Canby in 1882, from "Cameron’s Ranch s. of Snowy Mts.", NY! isotypi, GH, US! paratypi, as cited, NY! — P. purpureus mollis (Rydb.) A. Nels. in Coult. & Nels., New Man. 299. 1909.

P. pubescens (hairy, of the leaves) A. Nelson, Bot. Gaz. 31: 395. 1901. —"The species is founded on no. 247 from Berwind, Colorado, by Jennie M. Archibald." — Holotypus, RM, verified by Wemple, 1970, p. 87.—P. purpureum var. pubescens (A. Nels.) Har- ringt., Man. Pl. Colo. 319. 1954.

P. standleyanus (Paul Carpenter Standley, 1884-1963) Rydberg, N. Amer. Fl. 24: 131. 1920.— "Type collected in the Raton Mountains, New Mexico, August 18-19, 1903, David Griffiths 5464..." — Holotypus, US!

P. purpureum fma. arenarium (of sands) F. C. Gates, Torreya 11: 127. 1911. —"Type. (Gates 2922)...at Waukegan, Lake County, Illinois, August 7, 1908." —Holotypus, F, verified by Wemple, 1. c.

P. purpureum fma. albiflorum (white-flowered, an albino variant) Horr & McGregor, Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci. 55: 175. 1952. — "The type is McGregor 4986...July 17, 1951, 4 mi. S. Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas..." — Holotypus, KANU, verified by Wemple, 1970.— Dalea purpurea fma. albiflora (Horr & McGreg.) McGreg. Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci. 60: 161. 1957.

P. violaceum var. pubescens (hairy) Gray, Pl. Wright. 1: 46. 1852, p. p., as to P. violaceum sensu Gray, Pl. Fendl. 33. 1849 ("Five miles west of Las Vegas, New Mexico Fendler 137") but excluding other elements, among them the lectotypus (Heller, 1901), which = D. compacta var. pubescens (Gray) Barneby.— All derivatives, P. purpureum fma. pubescens (Gray) Fassett, 1936, and P. purpureum var. pubescens (Gray) Boivin, 1960 (comb. illegit, non P. purpureum var. pubescens (A. Nels.) Harringt.) even though intended to refer to the pubescent state of D. purpurea must follow the lectotypification and fall into synonymy of D. compacta var. pubescens, q. v.

This delightful prairie-clover, first cultivated in Europe about 1800 and subsequently in England during the vogue for American plants, has been figured repeatedly, but never so well as by Redoute in the original publication. See however Sims, Bot. Mag. 41: tab. 1707; Steyermark, Fl. Missouri Pl. 213, fig. 7.

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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