(Plate LXXXII)

Suffruticose or softly fruticose, in exposed sites diffuse or prostrate but when protected up to 1 m tall, silky-pilosulous nearly throughout with fine ascending and forwardly subappressed hairs up to 0.25-0.8 (1) mm long, the old wood glabrate, the young branchlets and peduncles at least sparsely, often prominently verruculose, the herbage when young and often permanently gray-silky, sometimes greenish in age, the leaflets pubescent both sides, livid-punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.6-1.2 mm long; stipules narrowly triangular to lanceolate, livid-castaneous, papery, 1-3.5 (4) mm long, thinly puberulent dorsally; intrapetiolular glands 2, spiculiform; post-petiolular glands small but prominent, obtuse; leaves shortly petioled, the primary cauline ones 1.2-2.5 (3) cm long, with narrowly margined rachis and 4-7 pairs of obovate or oblong-elliptic, obtuse but gland-mucronulate, flat or loosely folded leaflets 2-8 mm long, the upper spur-leaves (sometimes all remaining at anthesis) shorter, with (2) 3-5 pairs of smaller leaflets; peduncles (0) 0.5-6 cm long, the first of each primary stem leaf-opposed, the rest terminal to branchlets; spikes rather loose (or becoming so), the calyces (pressed) ± 2-3-ranked after anthesis, without androecia or petals 1 cm diam, the densely pilosulous axis becoming (1) 1.7-6 cm long; bracts persistent or deciduous at late anthesis, 3-7 mm long, variable according to variety (cf. key), papery with scarious, often brown-tinged margins, dorsally strigulose-pilosulous and gland-sprinkled, the tail 0.6-5 mm long; calyx (4.4) 4.5-6.2 mm long, pilose with fine straight ascending lustrous hairs up to 0.6-1.5 mm long, the tube (measured to dorsal sinus) (2.8) 3-4 mm long, the orifice oblique but not recessed behind banner, the filiform ribs usually livid, the wide membranous intervals charged with 1 row of 3-5 small yellow glands, the teeth deltate- to broadly triangular-subulate, slightly unequal, the dorsal one longest and narrowest, 1.3-2.3 (2.5) mm long (1.3-2.1 mm shorter than tube); petals bicolored, the banner greenish-white with often colored basal lobes, early rubescent, gland-tipped and -sprinkled, usually glabrous dorsally (sometimes a small tuft of hairs), the epistemonous ones blue or purple, perched 1.8-3 mm above hypanthium, the keel and often the wings gland-tipped; banner 7.5-9 mm long, the claw 3.5-4.5 mm, the suborbicular-cordate, shallowly emarginate, hooded blade open at base, 5-6 mm long, 5.4-6.4 mm wide; wings 7-8.8 mm long, the claws 2-2.8 mm, the obliquely ovate blade 6.3-7.3 mm long, 3.4-4.1 mm wide; keel 7.2-10.2 mm long, the claws 2.8-4 mm, the blades (5.1) 5.6-7.3 mm long, 3.4-4.1 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 8.5-11.5 mm long, the longer filaments free for 3.4-4.5 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers 0.75-0.95 mm long; pod obtusely subisotriangular, 3.1-3.4 mm long, the style-base at corner, the prow slenderly castaneous-keeled, the valves thinly papery in upper 2/3, pilosulous and sparsely glandular, glabrous hyaline at base; seed 2 + mm long, not seen ripe.

Like several kindred Andean daleas, D. weberbaueri is more easily recognized than characterized. It is obviously close to the sympatric D. cylindrica var. haenkeana, from which it differs principally in the gray-silky foliage and more readily disjointing bracts. In this last feature it approaches D. smithii, its neighbor to the immediate southeast, but this also has greenish foliage and slightly more numerous (5-9 not 4-6 or 7) pairs of leaflets. Discontinuities between these taxa are not yet established and cannot be large. Until they can be tested in the field it seems preferable to follow Macbride (1943) with one reservation: I am unable to exclude from D. weberbaueri the plant that Ulbrich described as D. sericophylla, which differs only in its long-tailed bracts, slightly larger leaflets, and slightly denser spikes. The also very nearly related D. fieldii, which Macbride ultimately reduced to D. sericophylla, has on the other hand some small technical characters which for the present serve to exclude it from D. weberbaueri.