82b.  Dalea weberbaueri Ulbrich var. sericophylla (Ulbrich) Barneby

(Plate LXXXII)

Foliage permanently silvery; leaflets up to 8 mm long; spikes densely flowered from base upward; keel-blade (little known) 5.1-5.6 mm long, 3-3.2 mm wide.— Collections: 2 (o).

Habitat unknown, but to be expected on open mountain slopes or in thin brush, 3100-3430 m, known only from Cajamarca, Peru (prov. Contumaza and Hualgayoc).—Flowering from lateral branchlets May-July, earlier from short, leaf-opposed peduncles. — Material: Cajamarca. Hualgayoc: typus. Contumaza: Las Achiras (hda. San Lorenzo), A. Sagastegui 3881 (US).

Dalea weberbaueri Ulbr. var. sericophylla (Ulbr.) Barneby, stat. nov., based on D. sericophylla (silky-leaved) Ulbr., Feddes Repert. 2: 7. 1906. — "Peruvia: Hacienda La Tahona prope Hualgayoc (Depart. Cajamarca) 3100 m. s. m. (A. Weberbauer no. 4017... 13. maio 1904...)." —Holotypus, formerly B, survives as Field Neg. 734, F + fragm. clasto- typ., NY, US! — Parosela sericophylla (Ulbr.) Macbr., Field Mus., Bot. 4: 105. 1927.

Contrary to Macbride’s final opinion that D. sericophylla Ulbr. is an earlier synonym of D. fieldii Macbr., I believe the taxa to be distinct. The two known specimens of var. sericophylla, both from Cajamarca, differ collectively from D. fieldii, known with certainty only from far south in Dept. Pasco, in their lanceolate rather than linear-setiform stipules and their relatively short calyx-teeth. In both specimens the spikes are mostly subsessile and terminal to leafy branchlets, a seasonal aspect, common in Dalea, that is closely matched by one example of var. weberbaueri from Ancash (Ferreyra 7573, US).  From this var. sericophylla differs principally in the narrow, elongate bracts drawn out into a firm tail longer than the body. Bracts of similar form are found, it is true, in D. fieldii, which may, after all be no more than one more local form of the same species, but seems in the present state of knowledge further apart from var. sericophylla than the latter is from var. weberbaueri.