134.  Dalea purpusi Brandegee

(Plate CXXII)

Intricately and rigidly branched, finally thorny shrubs of rounded outline up to 4-8 dm tall, the old wood gray and furrowed, the young branches terete but sparsely micro-tuberculate, like the foliage thinly pilosulous with subappressed, silky hairs up to 0.2-0.35 mm long, the leaflets green, pubescent both sides, smooth above, punctate beneath, the inflorescence silky-pilose; leaf-spurs 0.3-0.5 mm long; stipules triangular- subulate, livid, 0.8-1.4 mm long; intrapetiolular glands 0; post-petiolular glands small but prominent, rounded, red or livid; main cauline leaves early deciduous, shortly petioled, 8-25 mm long, with narrowly thick-margined, ventrally flattened or shallowly grooved rachis and 3-5 (7) obovate or obovate-cuneate, emarginate, or obcordate, flat leaflets 3-8 (10) mm long, the upper leaves and those borne on axillary spurs 1-3-foliolate, the leaflets of the same type but smaller; peduncles terminal to short, stiff, leafy branchlets, these in the second year persisting as thick thorns; spikes loosely ± 10-20-flowered, without petals ± 2-2.4 cm diam, the hirsutulous axis becoming 1-3 cm long; bracts early deciduous, lance- or ovate-acuminate, openly boat-shaped, ± 4 mm long, gland-verrucose and pilosulous dorsally, glabrous within, ciliolate, livid toward the tip; calyx sessile, 8-12.4 mm long, plumosely pilose with fine, straight, divaricate and ascending, spiral hairs up to 1.2-1.8 mm long, the tube 2.8-3.5 mm long, oblique at mouth, the slender ribs becoming prominent, castaneous or livid, the membranous intervals charged with ± 3-5, mostly 1-seriate, orange or golden blister-glands, the narrowly lance-caudate, gland-spurred, green or livid teeth of subequal length, flexuously arched outward distally, the dorsal one 5.2-9.5 mm long (1 1/2- 3 times as long as the tube); petals opening bicolored, the banner cream- colored, early rubescent, the inner petals lavender-purple becoming dark plum-purple when dry, elevated 0.8-2.1 mm above the hypanthium, all glandless; banner ± 8 mm long, the claw 3.5-3.8 mm, the deltate-ovate, slightly hooded blade 4.4-5 mm long, almost as wide, open at base but callous-thickened either side of claw, recurved through 40°; wings ± 8 mm long, the claw 3 mm, the blade 5.7-6 mm long, 2.6-2.9 mm wide; keel 10.4-11 mm long, the claws 4-4.2 mm, the blades 6.6-7.4 mm long, 4-4.2 mm wide; androecium 9.2-11.5 mm long, the longest filament free for 3-4 mm; anthers gland-tipped, 0.9-1 mm long; ovary pilose, the pod unknown. — Collections: 8(0).

Arid brushy hillsides and bouldery washes, 420-825 m (1400-2750 ft), rare and local, known only from the east side of the Baja California peninsula in long. 111° 31' -113° 30' W, lat. 26-28° N, from near Calmalli, extreme southern Distrito Norte, to Sierra Giganta w. of Loreto, Distrito Sur. — Flowering irregularly, December to April, possibly later . — Material: Baja California (Edo); Calmalli (paratypus). Baja California (distr. Sur): s. base of Tres Virgenes Peak, Shreve 7050 (ARIZ, F, US); 24-25 mi e. of San Ignacio, Gentry & Fox 11,753 (MEXU, RENNER); Wiggins 7933 (DS, F, UC, US); n.-w. slopes of Sierra Giganta, Carter 5190 (NY, sterile in Oct.); n. of Rancho Viejo on Loreto-San Javier road, Carter 5047 (NY, sterile in Sept.); Cuesta de las Parras between Loreto and San Javier, Carter & Sharsmith 4211 (UC).

Dalea purpusi Brandegee, Erythea 7: 2. 1899 ("Purpusi"). — "Plants with fruit and old flowers were collected by the writer in 1889, at San Esteban, Baja California, and by Dr. C. A. Purpus, in March, 1898, near Calmalli, not quite in bloom." — Lectotypus, Brandegee in 1889, from San Esteban, UC! paratypi (Purpus 223), F, UC, US! — Parosela purpusi (Bdg.) Rose in Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 10: 106. 1906.

The only shrubby dalea known to occur in the range of D. purpusi is D. bicolor var. orcuttiana, easily distinguished by the presence of 9-15 leaflets in the main cauline leaves, the denser spikes of usually smaller flowers, and a relatively short-toothed calyx (the dorsal tooth less than 4 mm long, shorter than or only a trifle longer than tube). The two other species of sect. Parosela found in Baja California, both to the south of D. purpusi, have almost the calyx of D. bicolor and in addition warty stems and glabrous foliage. The fresh petals of D. purpusi are described by Dr. Annetta Carter as lavender-purple, but the pigment seems to be different from that in flowers of most Versicolores, becoming deep plum-purple when dried, not pink or discolored pink. Carter reports that in the region of Sierra de la Giganta the plants are seldom encountered in flower, the inflorescence apparently developing only several weeks after the sporadic rains, not until most primary cauline leaves have been shed, and the plant itself is preparing to revert to aestival dormancy. Wiggins (1964, p. 675) describes the leaflets of D. purpusi as 3-13 in number, but I have observed no more than seven in any leaf. At full anthesis, with its proportionately enormous, richly colored flowers set off by the silky-plumose calyces, D. purpusi ranks high for beauty among many decorative desert daleas. The figure given by Wiggins (in Shreve & Wiggins, 1940, pl. XII) is excellent.