(Plate LXXVI)

Herbaceous from a slender, forking, yellow root, perhaps annual, certainly of short duration, appearing glabrous to the spike but the young stems distally and the stipule- margins puberulent with weak scattered loose hairs up to 0.2-0.3 mm long, the sparsely leafy, diffuse and incurved, irregularly few-branched stems up to 2.5 dm long, stramineous and minutely gland-verrucose, the foliage glabrous, greenish-glaucescent, the thick-textured leaflets smooth above, dotted beneath; leaf-spurs 0.7-1.2 mm long; stipules linear-lanceolate, membranous, 2.5-3.5 mm long; intrapetiolular glands minute, impressed; post-petiolular glands small, prominent but blunt; leaves 1.5-2.5 cm long, subsessile, with green-margined, ventrally grooved rachis and 4-6 rather distant pairs of broadly oblong-obovate to broadly oblanceolate, obtuse but gland- mucronate, loosely folded leaflets 4-6 mm long, the terminal one either short-stalked or sessile; peduncles (of the young plant seen) leaf-opposed, 1-3 cm long; spikes at early anthesis ovoid-conic, without petals ± 9 mm diam, 10 mm long, probably remaining dense and ovoid; bracts apparently persistent, ± 4 mm long, the navicular body ± 2.5 mm long, in profile 1.5 mm wide, clasping the calyx, membranous-mar- gined, dorsally livid and gland-sprinkled, glabrous, contracted into a subulate livid ciliolate keel ± 1.5 mm long; calyx 3.9 mm long, pilosulous with spreading hairs ± 0.4-0.5 mm long, the tube (measured to dorsal sinus) 2.6 mm long, strongly oblique at orifice but not recessed behind banner, the ribs filiform, livid, the intervals membranous, charged with 1 row of 2-3 tiny yellowish glands, the triangular-ovate short- acuminate teeth unequal, the dorsal one 1.3 mm long, the rest shorter and slightly broader, all shortly plumose; petals bicolored, the banner and keel whitish, the distal half of the wings dark vivid blue, the epistemonous ones perched below middle of androecium (1.1-1.9 mm above hypanthium), the keel minutely gland-tipped; banner 3.9 mm long, the claw 1.7 mm, the ovate-cordate blade 2.7 mm long, almost as wide, recessed into a shallow cornet at top of claw, the eye charged with a few minute glands; wings 3.2 mm long, the claw 0.9 mm, the oblong-oblanceolate blade 2.4 mm long, 1 mm wide; keel 3.8 mm long, the claws 1 mm, the broadly obovate blades 2.8 mm long, 1.8 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 5.5 mm long, the longer filaments free for 1.3 mm; pod unknown. — Collection: 1 (typus).

Habitat unknown, collected once only, at ± 3000 m, near e. edge of the Andean Plateau in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Dalea tapacariensis (of type-locality) Harms ex O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 3³ : 59. 1898.— "Bolivia: 3000 m Rio Tapacari." —Holotypus, formerly at B, survives as Field Neg. 736 (F, NY, US)! isotypus (probably matching half of same plant), NY (herb. Kuntze.)!

In general aspect the one known example of D. tapacariensis suggests a seedling D. boliviana just coming into flower. The calyx is only slightly smaller than the smallest known in D. boliviana, but the petals are much smaller, the keel-blade only ± 2.8 (not 4.3 + ) mm long. Furthermore, only the wing-petals are tipped with vivid blue, the banner and keel both opening whitish, a color-pattern otherwise unknown in Andean daleas. The species cannot be accepted without reservation until its characters can be described from mature material. If I am right in thinking that the specimens in the Berlin and Kuntze herbaria are halves of one and the same plant, the concept derives from just one individual, collected, moreover, from within the known range of D. boliviana.

Note: A strongly characterized but undescribed species of Dalea ser. Coeruleae is known from incomplete material from "Northern Peru, coll. Col R. J. Stordy, reed, jan 1921." (K). It is remarkable for its loose, narrow, many-flowered spike (without petals ± 9 mm diam, the axis 3-6 cm long) of small, short-toothed calyces densely villosulous with fine vertical hairs up to 0.3-0.4 mm long. The calyx-tube is 2.8-3 mm long, the intervals charged with one linear blister-gland 1-1.8 mm long situated below middle of the panel and surmounted by 1-2 small ones situated above middle. The epistemonous petals appear to have been violet, the keel-blades about 5 mm long. The early deciduous interfloral bracts suggest D. onobrychis, but the pubescence and intercostal glands of the calyx are very different.