(Plates LXXXI, LXXXII)

Herbs and subshrubs, variable in habit and pubescence, often diffuse (rarely radicant) when young or in exposed places, becoming when favored or aged erect and bushy, pilosulous at least on the young stems, sometimes densely villous nearly throughout, the foliage green to silvery-pilosulous, the leaflets glabrous or pubescent above, punctate beneath, the mature stems usually castaneous, densely microtuberculate to almost smooth; leaf-spurs 0.5-1.8 mm long; stipules narrowly lance-caudate to linear-setiform, (0.6) 1-7 mm long, pilosulous dorsally from base upward or only at tip; intrapetiolular glands small, rounded or spiculiform; post-petiolular glands small but prominent, blunt or conical; leaves shortly petioled or subsessile, the main cauline ones (1.5) 2-5.5 cm long, with slender, narrowly margined rachis and 4-10 (11) pairs of oblong-elliptic to obovate, obtuse, obtuse and gland-mucronate, or very shortly acuminate, dorsally keeled, mostly flat, sometimes loosely folded leaflets (1.5) 2-15 (17) mm long, the leaves of spurs (sometimes the only leaves present at anthesis) smaller, with ±3-6 shorter, often more densely pubescent leaflets; peduncles except the first of each primary axis terminal to leafy branchlets, (1) 1.5-13 cm long, the spikes mostly elevated well above the foliage; spikes moderately dense, ovoid or the larger ones quickly becoming oblong-cylindroid, without petals or androecia (9) 10-12 (14) mm diam, the pilosulous, rarely glabrescent axis 1-16 cm long; bracts persistent, commonly glabrous externally except for the keel and tail, rarely pilosulous nearly throughout, the navicular body 2-3.5 (4) mm long, in profile (0.9) 1-1.4 (1.5) mm wide, livid or castaneous within the membranous margins, sparsely to densely gland-sprinkled, contracted gradually or abruptly into a straight or ± recurved, puberulent tail (0.4) 1-3 mm long; calyx (4) 4.2-6 (6.2) mm long, the tube externally either glabrous or thinly pilose, throughout or at base only, with fine, straight, spreading-ascending hairs up to 0.5-1.5 mm long, the tube (2.8) 3-3.8 mm long, oblique at the internally ciliolate orifice but not strongly recessed behind banner, the ribs castaneous or livid, slender or sometimes stout from the beginning, the membranous intervals charged with 1 row of 3-7 yellow or livid glands, the deltate, triangular, or triangular and short-acuminate teeth unequal, the dorsal one longest, 1.2-2.7 (3) mm long, at least 0.2 mm shorter than tube; petals variably colored, the epistemonous ones commonly purple or blue or partly so, more rarely all sulfur-yellow, the banner and keel often but not always gland-tipped, the banner nearly always gland-sprinkled, glabrous dorsally, the epistemonous petals perched =b 1.6-3 mm above hypanthium; banner (5.5) 6-9.2 mm long, the claw 2.3-4.2 mm, the broadly ovate-cordate, obtuse, hooded blade (4) 4.3-5.5 mm long, (3.6) 4.2-5.6 mm wide, open at base but the basal lobes incurved and often ± adherent; wings 4.8-8 mm long, the claw 1.3-2.3 mm, the obovate blade 3.2-6.4 mm long, 1.6-3.7 mm wide; keel (6.2) 6.8-10.7 mm long, the claw 1.5-3.2 mm, the amply ovate-elliptic blades (4.3) 4.7-8 mm long, (2.7) 3-5.1 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, (7.2) 8-12 mm long, the longer filaments free for (2) 2.4-4.5 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers (0.55) 0.6-1.05 mm long; pod (little known) broadly deltate-obovate in profile, 2.6-3.2 mm long, the style-base near comer, the prow slenderly keeled, the valves membranous and glabrous below middle, distally pilosulous and gland-sprinkled.

The series of daleas assembled here into an inclusive and polymorphic D. cylindrica present some of the more difficult taxonomic problems in the genus. Parts of the complex were referred by Macbride (1943) to six species: D. nova, D. sawadae, D. catatona, D. sulfurea, D. rubricaulis, and D. cylindrica sens. str. (including a variety); but the features of these that were supposed to be diagnostic are all highly variable, and the material that has accrued in the past 25 years fits ill or not at all into the scheme proposed in Flora of Peru. Characters common to all aspects of D. cylindrica as redefined above are: persistent bracts, which may be, however, either glabrous or pubescent dorsally; short-toothed calyx, tending to be glabrous externally or at least glabrescent in the teeth; and relatively big flowers arranged in moderately dense spikes. In the last analysis, it is a disjunct range rather than morphological differences which permit the segregation of D. pazensis, and deciduous bracts alone exclude from the D. cylindrica complex the closely related D. onobrychis, D. Smithii, D. pennellii, and D. azurea.

The most unstable features within D. cylindrica are: stature; density and length of leaf- pubescence; leaf-size and to some degree number of leaflets, this to be compared only between leaves of the same age and order; and color of the petals and calyx-glands. No one character by itself serves to distinguish any segment of the complex, but groups of two or more characters are clearly emphasized within natural geographic ranges. Even within the varieties of D. cylindrica recognized below, the same sort of variation, though in less extreme form, is encountered with such frequency that one might almost say that no two populations of the species are exactly alike. Disregarding for the moment the crucial exceptions mentioned later on, one can recognize a major dichotomy in D. cylindrica corresponding to a cismontane and an intermontane series. The former, including D. cylindrica sens, str., has usually few, large, and thin leaflets; a calyx-tube very often glabrous externally, and charged with relatively large, black or livid glands; and petals either pale yellow, or pale yellow tinged with purple, or if purple of a reddish-amethystine hue. In the latter, which extends south in Peru to Junin and north through Amazonas into Ecuador, the petals are always of some shade of blue of blue-violet, usually the vivid cobalt seen in sympatric forms of D. coerulea. These intermontane populations, from which were derived the types of D. nova, D. sawadae, D. cutervoana, D. catatona are internally diverse and separable into two major categories, corresponding with var. nova and var. haenkeana as defined in the following pages. In central Peru the two primary divisions of D. cylindrica are geographically disjunct, sharply separated by the westernmost crest of the Andes, but the separation further north becomes imperfect and there is a critical area of intergradation on the Pacific-Maranon watershed between southern Cajamarca and Ancash. In northern Ancash var. cylindrica is represented by a race that combines the foliage and calyx of the cismontane series with the blue petals of var. nova. Also common, perhaps dominant in the same region is a slender form distinct in its diminished foliage, short spikes, usually diffuse or prostrate habit. This is recognized below as D. cylindrica var. haenkeana, but intergrades freely in Cajamarca with var. nova. In nearly the same latitudes on the Pacific slope in Cajamarca and La Libertad the picture is complicated by the appearance of a dalea with pale-yellow petals combined with densely and loosely pilose foliage, but otherwise hardly different from some individual races of var. cylindrica. It is maintained, for the sake of convenience, as D. cylindrica var. sulfurea. The closely related D. fieldii, found near the southern limit of var. nova in Huanuco, combines in an interesting and suggestive manner the few ample leaflets of var. cylindrica with the blue petals of var. nova, but introduces its own variation on the theme of pubescence combined with longer, narrower, finally deciduous bracts. Its status as a distinct species is open to reinterpretation.