Dalea gattingeri

Rupert C. Barneby

50.  Dalea gattingeri (A. Heller) Barneby

(Plate LX)

Diffuse perennial herb from thick blackish root, 1.5-3.5 dm tall, appearing glabrous to the inflorescence but the leaf-rachis, the lower (rarely both) faces of leaflets, and stems distally (or some of these) thinly pilosulous with weak, spreading- ascending, ± sinuous hairs up to 0.3-0.5 mm long, the decumbent-incurved, striate, eglandular or remotely minutely microglandular stems either simple or branched distally, or branched throughout, either monocephalous or going out into a central and several smaller lateral spikes, the foliage green, the leaflets scarcely bicolored, punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.2-1 mm long; stipules linear-caudate becoming stiff and setiform, (1.5) 2-6 (7) mm long; intmpetiolular glands 2, minute; post-petiolular glands small, not or scarcely prominent; leaves shortly petioled, the primary cauline ones 2-3.5 cm long, with broadly margined rachis and 5-7 (9) linear, linear-oblanceolate, or -elliptic, obtuse (sometimes gland-mucronulate) flat and marginally inrolled or tightly involute leaflets up to 8-18 mm long, the terminal one subsessile or short- stalked, always the longest, the leaves of axillary spurs shorter, with 3-5 smaller, otherwise similar leaflets; peduncles 0.5-2.5 cm long; spikes moderately dense, the flowers (pressed) falling into ± 3-4 ranks, oblong to cylindric, (8) 9-10 mm diam, the densely pilosulous axis becoming 1.5-7.5 cm long; bracts deciduous by full anthesis but often held fast between the calyces and falling only with the pod, in outline lance-caudate, 3-5 (6) mm long, the lowest firm and persistent, the inner ones papery and pallid at base, distally subherbaceous, greenish or livid, dorsally pilosulous to apex and charged with a few small glands; calyx 4-5 mm long, densely pilosulous-tomentulose with sinuous hairs up to 0.25-0.4 mm long, the subsymmetric tube 2-2.5 (2.7) mm long, not recessed behind banner, indistinctly 10-ribbed, the intervals all densely castaneous-flecked, glandless, the teeth unequal, the 3 dorsal lanceolate, up to 1.9-2.8 mm long (0.6 mm longer to 0.6 mm shorter than tube), the ventral pair ovate, all with green or greenish-livid blades, sometimes minutely gland- spurred on margins; petals rose-purple, eglandular; banner 5.2-6.2 mm long, the claw 3.1-3.9 mm, the ovate blade 2.1-2.6 mm long, (1.6) 2-2.8 mm wide, either broadly cuneate or shallowly cordate at base, hooded at the entire or emarginate apex; epistemonous petals 3.5-4.5 mm long, the blades oblong or elliptic-oblanceolate, obtuse, 2.6-3.2 mm long, 0.9-1.3 mm wide, cuneately contracted at base into a claw 0.7 1.4 mm long; androecium 6.3-7.8 mm long, the column 2.4-3 mm, the filaments free for 3.8-5.4 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the orange anthers 0.9-1 mm long; pod semi-obovate in profile, 2.8-3.3 mm long, the ventral suture nearly straight, the prow slender, the style-base at upper corner, the valves in lower half papery (not hyaline), glabrous, distally firmer, densely pilosulous, microglandular; seed up to 2.2 mm long; 2n = 14 (Wemple, 1970, p. 12). - Collections: 19 (i).

Thin stony soils of calcareous cedar-glades and barrens, locally abundant, centr. Tennessee (Nashville Basin to region of Chattanooga) s. into the n.-w. corner of Georgia and n.-w. Alabama (Franklin Co.); cf. Wemple, 1970, map 13. - Flowering May to August.— Representative: Tennessee: Demaree 45,747 (DAO, NY); Wemple 473, 474 (NY); Barneby 14,979 (CAS, GH, F, IA, NY, US); Krai 26,950 (OKLA). Georgia: B. L. Turner 4935 (TEX). Alabama: R. L. James s. n. in 1944 (NY).

Dalea gattingeri (A. Heller) Barneby, comb. nov., based on Kuhnistera gattingeri (Augustin Gattinger, 1825-1903) A. Hell., Bull. Torrey Club 23: 121, PI. 262. 1896. - "...Dr. A. Gattinger...about Nashville and Lavergne, Tenn...specimens are in Curtiss' North American Plants, no. 565..." - Lectoholotypus (Wemple, 1970, p. 80): Curtiss 565* US! isotypi, K, NY (annotated by Heller), WIS! —Petalostemon gattingeri (A. Hell.) A. Hell., Bull. Torrey Club 26: 593. 1899.

A handsome low prairie-clover, the numerous short stems decumbent and radiating from the heavy rootstock and bearing a chaplet of vivid purple tassels sparked by the orange anthers. The species seems closely related to D. tenuifolia which it resembles in its relatively loose flower-spikes, but distinguished by the basally glabrous stems, narrower bracts, and short-pilosulous calyx. The primary leaves of D. tenuifolia have only three or five leaflets; those of D. gattingeri five, seven and less often nine. The species seems to have been collected first in "Upper Alabama" in 1866 by T. Peters (NY).

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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