148.  Dalea lasiathera Gray

(Plate CXXXIII)

Herbs (resembling the last) from a tough yellow root and shortly forking caudex, glabrous to the calyces, the decumbent or incurved-ascending, pallid, striate, sparsely low-pustulate stems 1-3 (3.5) dm long, simple or with 1-2 lateral monocephalous branches beyond the middle, the foliage glaucous or glaucescent, the thick-textured leaflets pale blue-green above, pustulate-punctate beneath; leaf-spurs up to 0.5 mm long; stipules narrowly subulate-attenuate, brown or livid, 0.8-2.2 mm long, the broader ones with narrow scarious margins; intrapetiolular glands 0; post-petiolular glands prominent, either obtuse or crateriform; leaves shortly petioled or subsessile, (1) 1.5-3 cm long, with thick-margined, punctate rachis and (2) 3-5 pairs of linear- oblanceolate, -elliptic, or narrowly oblong-oblanceolate, emarginate or obtuse, loosely folded or marginally elevated leaflets 5-12 mm long; peduncles terminal, 1.5-5 (6) cm long; spikes moderately dense, the flowers (pressed) mostly 2-3-ranked and not concealing the glabrous axis, without petals and androecia 11-13 mm diam, becoming 2-6 cm long; bracts persistent, glabrous, broadly ovate from a subtruncate base, abruptly short-acuminate, folded to embrace the calyx, (3) 3.5-5.5 mm long, 3.8-5 mm wide, the firm body glaucescent and grossly glandular-pustulate dorsally, carinate, the margins scarious, pallid, sometimes undulate; calyx 5.3-6.9 mm long, silky- pilosulous with ascending and subappressed hairs up to 0.55-1 mm long, the oblique orifice and base of teeth very densely pilosulous-ciliate, the broadly campanulate tube 3.3-3.9 mm long, 3.1-3.7 mm diam, the ribs becoming prominent, the rather firm intervals charged with 1 (or the ventral pair with 2) rows of 3-5 (8) pallid glands mostly concealed by vesture, the teeth deltate and abruptly contracted into a subulate point, the longest 1.9-2.8 (3.2) mm long, 0.5-1.8 mm shorter than tube, their lateral nerves intramarginal, forking below the membranous sinuses; petals bright violet- or magenta-purple, the banner with a yellow, early rubescent, gland-sprinkled eye, the epistemonous ones perched near middle of androecium; banner 6.2-7.5 mm long, the claw (2.5) 3-4 mm, the quadrate-ovate, basally cordate, emarginate blade recessed above top of claw into a cornet, 3.8-4.6 mm long, 4.2-5 mm wide; wings 4.5-6.2 mm long, the claw (2.5) 3-4 mm, the obovate or oblong-obovate blade 3.7 -4.7 mm long, 2.2-3 mm wide; keel (6.3) 6.6-9.4 mm long, the claws 1.5-2.4 (3.6) mm, the oblong-elliptic blades 5.3-6.5 mm long, 2.3-3.7 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 8.5-12 mm long, the longer filaments free for 3.4-4.7 mm, the connective minutely gland-tipped, the anthers 0.8-1.2 mm long; style (? always) exserted at full anthesis; pod 3-3.5 mm long, the prow bicarinate; seed brown, smooth, ± 2.3 mm long. — Collections: 57 (ii).

Stony plains and hillsides, commonly on limestone, coming out s.-e.-ward into mesquite-savanna, mostly 160-1550 m (530-5170 ft), rather common and locally plentiful on Edwards Plateau, Texas, and the calcareous ranges of the n.-e. half of Coahuila, in Texas crossing the Colorado R. into Brown and Taylor counties, w. to Crockett and s. to Uvalde County, with outlying stations in trans-Pecos (Jeff Davis and n. Presidio cos), extending briefly out onto the plains of Rio Grande (Bravo) valley, in Texas to La Salle County, in Mexico to the n.-e. corner of Coahuila, apparently somewhat isolated, at ± 600 m, on the e. piedmont of Sierra Madre Oriental in centr. Nuevo Leon (mpo Allende), and disjunct at sea-level on the Gulf Coast of Tamaulipas near Laguna Madre. — Flowering late March to June, sometimes again in September to November.— Representative: UNITED STATES. Texas: Cory 51,718 {NY, UC), 52,024 (NY); T. & L. Mosquin 5629 (NY): Tolstead 7141 (OKLA, TEX, UC); D. & H. Corell 30,454 (RENNER); Small & Wherry 11,952 (NY, RENNER). MEXICO. Coahuila: Stewart 1346 (GH, TEX); Marsh 1149, 2150 (F, GH, OKLA); Pringle 9029 (F, MEXU); Ripley & Barneby 14,219 (CAS, NY); I. Johnston 9122 (GH). Nuevo Leon: C. & M. Mueller 496 (F, TEX); Palmer 224 in 1880 (NY). Tamaulipas: LeSueur219 (ARIZ, F, TEX); Gonzalez Medrano s. n. in 1963 (ENCB).

Dalea lasiathera (with woolly awns, of the calyx-teeth) Gray, Pl. Wright. 1: 48. 1852.—"133...Prairies, west of San Antonio, Texas, and valley of the Limpia." — Holotypus, collected by Charles Wright in 1849, GH! isotypi, NY, OXF, UC, US!— Parosela lasiathera (Gray) A. Heller, Cat. N. Amer. PI. ed 2, 6. 1900. P. lasianthera (sphalm.) Rydb., N. Amer. Fl. 24: 96. 1920, an inadvertent, often copied error.

Similar to the large-flowered phase of the preceding species, D. pogonathera var. pogonathera, but easily distinguished by the deeply campanulate, short-toothed calyx clad in shorter, silky-pilosulous rather than plumosely spreading hairs. Though no taller than D. pogonathera, plants of D. lasiathera become, in their prime, more robust, with more numerous, leafier stems and showier spikes of flower. Leaflets in D. pogonathera are normally two or three pairs, but in D. lasiathera three, four, or five. The petals of D. pogonathera are violet-purple, and the banner has a small white or greenish-white eye glandless or almost so; in D. lasiathera the ground-color is commonly vivid magenta, the banner-eye yellow and garnished with little yellow oil-blisters. The partly sympatric D. pogonathera var. walkerae is an altogether more modest plant, the calyx-teeth as short, but combined with a short tube and smaller petals.