139c.  Dalea carthagenensis (Jacquin) Macbride var. portoricana Barneby

(Plate CXXV)

Glabrous or nearly so up to the spikes, the young branchlets and leaf-rachis thinly villosulous; primary cauline leaves 2.5-6.5 cm long, with 11-15 leaflets 4-13 mm long; peduncles terminal to main divisions of the panicle commonly developed, up to 1-2 cm long, the rest (rarely all) very short or 0; spikes loose, mostly 10-30-flowered, the villosulous axis becoming (5) 10-30 mm long; bracts 2.5-4.5 mm long, thinly villosulous or glabrate dorsally; calyx 5-6.9 mm long, villosulous throughout, the tube 2.5-2.7 mm, the intercostal glands 3-5, relatively small, the teeth (2.4) 3-4 mm long; banner 3.5-4 mm, the claw 1.5-2 mm, the blade 1.7-2.1 mm long; keel 4.2-5.8 mm long, the claws 1.9-2.4 mm, the blades 2.3-3.6 mm long, 1.4-2 mm wide; androecium 5.3-6.5 mm long. — Collections: 12 (o).

Dry hills and thickets near the coast, here and there along the s. coast of Puerto Rico. — Flowering November to April .—Representative: Alain 9025 (NY); Britton, Britton & Brown 5989 (NY); Britton & Shafer 1798 (NY); Sintenis 3538 (M).

Dalea carthagenensis (Jacqu.) Macbr. var. portoricana (of Puerto Rico) Barneby, var. nov., a var. carthagenensi floribus minoribus, carinae laminis 2.3-3.6 (nec 6.5-9) mm longo, caeterius var. typicae formis austro-americanis glabriusculis praesimilis. — Puerto Rico: inter Coamo et Salinas, 9 dec 1885, P. Sintenis, Pl. Portoricenses 2986. — Holotypus, NY; isotypi BR, M, UC, W.

Material of var.portoricana was associated by Urban (in herb.) and by Clausen (1946) with the similar plant of Hispaniola, but was referred by Rydberg (1920, p. 113) to the Venezuelan Parosela emphysodes. It differs from both of these entities, which are combined herein under the name var. carthagenensis, in its small keel-blades and correspondingly short androecium. As already noted, the representative of D. carthagenensis found on St. John Island in the Virgins (listed by Britton, Mem. Brooklyn Bot. Gard. 1: 53. 1918, as Parosela domingensis) is surprisingly also var. carthagenensis, not var. portoricana.