74.  Dalea quercetorum Standley & L. Williams

(Plate LXXVI)

Coarse, softly woody herbs and shrubs variable in habit and stature, often flowering the first year as monopodial herbs 0.6-1.5 m tall, later several stemmed from a caudex, or ultimately true shrubs up to 4.5 m tall, the foliage and the young, livid or greenish, inconspicuously verruculose stems densely silky-pilose or -pilosulous with fine flexuous hairs up to 0.5-1.5 mm long, the leaflets equally pubescent both sides, densely gland-sprinkled beneath, the spiciform racemes mostly terminal to leafy branchlets, forming an open corymbose panicle; leaf-spurs 0.7-2.5 mm long; stipules linear-caudate, pale or livid, becoming stiff and fragile, 3.5-7 mm long, densely pilosulous and sparsely verruculose dorsally; intrapetiolular glands 2-4, spiculiform; post- petiolular glands small but prominent, blunt; leaves shortly petioled, the main cauline ones (2.5) 3-9 cm long, with stiff, narrowly margined rachis and 3-7 pairs of oblong: or ovate-elliptic to broadly oblanceolate, abruptly short-acuminate, flat, dorsally carinate leaflets up to 1-2.5 (mostly 1-1.5) cm long; spikes (racemes) moderately dense, many-flowered, becoming oblong-cylindroid, without petals 12-15 mm diam, the subcontiguous flowers widely spreading-ascending, the densely pilosulous axis (1) 2-14 cm long; bracts deciduous, 3-6(8) mm long, the body broadly lanceolate, navicular, keeled dorsally, castaneous except for scarious-margined base, 2-4 (4.5) mm long and in profile 1-1.6 mm wide, tapering or abruptly contracted into a livid tail 1.5 2.5 (3.5) mm long, the whole pilosulous dorsally throughout or almost so, glandless or minutely gland-sprinkled, glabrous within; pedicels up to 0.3-0.7 mm long, sometimes almost 0; calyx 5.5-7.5 mm long, finely and densely pilose with spiral hairs up to (0.8) 1-1.4 mm long, the tube 2.7-3.7 mm long, somewhat recessed behind banner, the orifice moderately oblique, the slender, livid-castaneous or rarely pallid ribs becoming prominent, the membranous flat intervals charged with many small scattered, golden or honey-colored glands, the lance- or triangular-cuspidate gland-tipped and -spurred teeth unequal, the dorsal one longest, 2.2-4 mm long (as long to 1.2 mm shorter than tube), the ventral pair shortest; petals bicolored, the banner white distally, rubescent, its basal lobes blue-tipped, charged with a few glands in the eye and dorsally above top of claw with a small tuft of hairs, sometimes like the keel minutely gland-tipped, the epistemonous petals deep vivid blue fading violet-blue, paler along outer edges, perched well below middle of androecium (± 2.2-3.8 mm above hypanthium); banner 6-7 mm long, the claw 3.2-3.8 mm, the suborbicular emarginate blade callous but not recessed into a comet at base, 3-3.8 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, its lobes inflexed and adherent to form lateral pockets; wings 5.5-5.8 mm long, the claw 1.2-1.7 mm, the ovate-oblong blade 4.3-4.7 mm long, 2-2.2 mm wide; keel 6-7.3 mm long, the claws 1.7-2.4 mm, the elliptic blades 4.7-5.5 mm long, 2.7-3.1 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 7-9 mm long, the longest filaments free for 1.7-2.5 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers 0.55-0.7 mm long; pod in profile triangular or triangular-obovate, 2.6-3.4 mm long, the style-base latero-terminal, the prow slenderly keeled, the valves hyaline in lower 2/3, thence thinly papery, minutely gland-sprinkled, pilosulous with fine spiral hairs; seed castaneous, 2-2.9 mm long.—Collections: 10 (o).

Habitat little known, but at least sometimes in oak-pine woods, ± 1500-1700 m, apparently local and discontinuous: highlands of Chiapas, Mexico (mpos Amatenango del Valle, Comitan, La Trinitaria); s.-e. Guatemala, mostly within or near the drainage of Rio Motagua (dptos Baja Verapaz, Jalapa, Zacapa), and Honduras (dptos Comayagua, El Paraiso, Intibuca).— Flowering November through February.— Material: MEXICO. Chiapas: Miranda 5014 (MEXU); Matuda 6022 (F, MEXU); Breedlove & Raven 8363 (US). GUATEMALA. Baja Verapaz: Molina & Molina 12,353 (F, NY). Jalapa: Steyermark 33,127 (F). Zacapa: Steyermark 42,936 (F), 43,186 (F, NY). HONDURAS. Comayagua: Yuncker et al 6238 (F, sterile); El Paraiso: Molina 13,075 (F, NY). Intibuca: Molina & Molina 24,287 (NY); Standley 25,191, 25,268 (F, topotypi).