Dalea carthagenensisvar. floridana


Rupert C. Barneby

Dalea carthagenensis (Jacquin) Macbride var. floridana (Rydberg) Barneb139d.  Dalea carthagenensis (Jacquin) Macbride var. floridana (Rydberg) Barneby

(Plate CXXV)

Villosulous throughout, or the leaves and twigs rarely glabrescent, exceptionally glabrous; primary cauline leaves 3-5.5 (7) cm long, with 15-23 (25) leaflets 412 (14) mm long; peduncles terminal to main divisions of the panicle up to (3) 5 -25 mm long, succeeding ones shorter or 0; spikes loose, 5-15 (20)-flowered, the villosulous axis becoming (2) 4-15 (20) mm long; bracts (2.5) 3-5 mm long, dorsally villosulous or glabrescent at middle; calyx (5.2) 5.5-7 mm long, villosulous from base upward, the tube (2.4) 2.6-3.2 mm, the teeth 2.6-4 mm long, straight or obscurely incurved at tip; banner 4.2-5.2 mm long, the claw 1.7-2.2 mm, the blade 2.5-3.4 mm long, 2.6-3.4 mm wide; keel (5.5) 5.8-6.8 mm long, the claws (1.8) 2-2.6 mm, the blades 4-5.4 mm long, (2) 2.2-3 mm wide; androecium (6.2) 6.5-8.5 mm long.— Collections: 16.

Pineland and hammocks, sometimes on coral rock, coming out to road-sides and canal-banks, below 15 m, apparently common locally in Palm Beach, Dade, and Monroe counties, s. peninsular Florida. — Flowering November to May .—Representative: Florida. Palm Beach: Curtiss 5374 (NY, UC); Small 8512 (NY). Monroe: Moldenke 346 (NY). Dade: Moldenke 3786 (NY); Small 4071, 4083, 4762 (all NY).

Dalea carthagenensis (Jacqu.) Macbr. var. floridana (Rydb.) Barneby, stat. nov., based on Parosela floridana (of Florida) Rydb., N. Amer. FI. 24: 114. 1920.— "Type collected at Miami, Florida, November, 1878, A. P. Garber..." — Holotypus, NY! isotypi (5), NY!

The var. floridana was equated by Small (Fl. S. E. U. S. 628) with the Antillean D. domingensis, and subsequently was reduced by Clausen (1946, p. 85) to a homonymous subsp. of D. emphysodes. It is obviously closely akin to the races of D. carthagenensis found on Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, but differs from both in the more numerous and, on the average, smaller leaflets in the primary cauline leaves. These leaves are, as in all forms of the species, drought-deciduous, with the result that specimens collected toward the end of the dry season, in April or May, simulate the genuine var. carthagenensis of Hispaniola, but comparison of plants collected in the fall months demonstrate a clear and constant difference in leaflet-number. The foliage of var. floridana, like that of var. carthagenensis in Colombia and Venezuela, varies from densely villosulous to glabrous, although the latter state is comparatively rare and seldom collected (cf. Moldenke 346, already cited). This variation in pubescence within the context of a geographically constricted entity is especially noteworthy, as it exemplifies

References: [Article] Barneby, Rupert C. 1977. Daleae Imagines, an illustrated revision of Errazurizia Philippi, Psorothamnus Rydberg, Marine Liebmann, and Dalea Lucanus emen. Barneby, including all species of Leguminosae tribe Amorpheae Borissova ever referred to Dalea. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 27: 1-892.

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