120.  Dalea hintoni Sandwith

(Plates CVIII and CIX)

Suffruticose perennials, variable in habit, the stems 3-10 dm long either diffuse and irregularly branching from the base upward or virgate and branching only distally, glabrous to the spikes, the livid-castaneous stems smooth except for a few small prominent glands under the heads, the foliage of rather thick texture, bicolored, the leaflets smooth and green above, paler and punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.3-0.5 mm long; stipules livid, becoming dry and deciduous, subulate, 0.2-0.6 mm long; intra- petiolular glands small, impressed; post-petiolular glands prominent, livid, obtuse; main cauline leaves either sessile or petioled, 1.5-3.5 cm long, with 2-15 pairs of oblanceolate, elliptic, or obovate, very obtuse or emarginate, folded or openly cymbiform, dorsally keeled, bluntly gland-mucronate leaflets 2-6.5 mm long; peduncles terminal to leafy branchlets, or openly paniculate, (0.6) 1-3.5 (5) cm long; spikes ± 8-15-flowered, densely capitate, without petals 8-12 (13) mm diam, the densely pilosulous axis becoming 2-8 mm long; bracts persistent, ± dimorphic, the outermost broadly ovate to rhombic-obovate, subacuminate, (2.5) 3-4.5 (5) mm long, firm livid glabrous and gland-tuberculate dorsally, ciliolate toward the base, the inner ones narrower, sometimes a little longer, oblanceolate, glabrescent at middle of back, sometimes also at tip, otherwise pilosulous dorsally, all densely silky within; calyx (4.1) 4.5-5.9 mm long, densely pilosulous with spreading (when dry golden) hairs up to 0.5-0.8 mm long, the tube (2.5) 2.7-3.2 mm long, the ventral sinus recessed behind the banner and the orifice thus oblique, the ribs castaneous, slender but finally prominent, the narrow, membranous intervals charged with very small, uniseriate glands visible only from within or eglandular, the firm, subulate, livid or nigrescent teeth unequal, the dorsal one (1.5) 1.7-2.8 mm long (shorter than tube), the ventral pair shortest but hardly broader, all gland-spurred; petals at first bicolored, the banner whitish but rubescent, commonly gland-sprinkled, the inner rose-purple, all charged with a large subapical blister-gland, inserted at points ± 1.3-2.4 mm above the hypanthium rim; banner 4.2-5.5 mm long, the claw (2) 2.2-2.9 mm, the deltate-cordate blade recurved through ± 40-50°, 2.4-3.5 mm long, 2.7-3.6 mm wide, open at base; wings 4.6-6.8 mm long, the claw 1.5-2.3 mm, the oblong-oblanceolate to elliptic blade 3.1-4.7 mm long, 1.5-2.7 mm wide; keel 4.6-7.3 mm long, the claws 1.7-3.2 mm, the broadly obovate-elliptic to suborbicular blades 3.2-4.5 mm long, (2.2) 2.43 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 5.1-7 mm long, the longest filament free for 1.6-2.6 mm, the gland-tipped anthers apparently whitish, 0.6-0.75 mm long; ovary thinly pubescent distally.

In its area of dispersal D. hintoni is the only perennial dalea with glabrous foliage, capitate spikes of short-toothed, densely pilosulous calyces, and persistent bracts, the outermost of which are broad and glabrous dorsally, forming a sort of calyculus under the head, but (like the inner ones) silky within. It appears to be very local, but its apparent rarity may be due in part to its usually late season of bloom, during the dry winter months. All of the four collections known are nearly monomorphic in characters of the inflorescence and detail of the flower, but they are remarkably disparate in habit and foliage. While the importance and stability of these vegetative characters remain to be tested, it seems for the present necessary to distinguish three varieties. Future collections may well modify this unavoidably limited view of the racial situation in the species.