149.  Dalea enneandra Nuttall

(Plate CXXXIV)

Erect perennial herbs from a tough yellow root, (5) 6-12 dm tall, glabrous up to the silky calyces, the stems solitary or few (seldom over 3), in lower 1/2-2/3 simple and (young) densely leafy, branching distally into a broadly rounded or flat-topped panicle of narrow flexuous spikes, the main axis commonly leafless by full anthesis, the branches only remotely and minutely gland-tuberculate or smooth, the stramineous branchlets terete, the foliage glaucous, the thick-textured leaflets smooth above, gland-dotted beneath; leaf-spurs 0.4-0.7 mm long; stipules narrowly triangular-subulate, livid, 0.6-1.3 mm long, becoming dry and fragile; intrapetiolular glands 0; post- petiolular glands prominent, orange or red; leaves subsessile, the main cauline ones 1.3-2.6 cm long, with narrowly thick-margined punctate rachis and (2) 3-5 (6) pairs of narrowly oblanceolate or elliptic, obtuse, navicular or loosely folded, bluntly gland- mucronulate leaflets 4-11 (12) mm long, the leaves reduced upward along the finer branchlets, with only (1) 2-3 pairs of smaller leaflets; peduncles mostly terminal to ultimate branchlets of the panicle, but a few early ones appearing leaf-opposed, 0.5-3.5 (5.5) cm long; spikes loosely or remotely (2) 5-30 (35)-flowered, the flowers (pressed) ± 2-ranked, revealing the glabrous axis, this at length (1) 2.5-12 cm long; bracts persistent, broadly ovate, obovate, or obovate-truncate, folded around the calyx, carinate dorsally, the keel running out into a reddish mucro not over 1 mm long, the body 3-4.2 mm long, in profile 1.6-2.5 mm wide, except for the broad pallidly membranous sometimes ciliolate margin firm, glabrous, glaucescent, and charged with many small but prominent orange or livid blister-glands; calyx 6.2-7.6 mm long, silky-pilosulous with ascending spiral hairs up to 1.1-1.7 mm long, the tube 3-3.5-(3.7) mm long, the slender, concolorous ribs not very prominent, the membranous intervals charged with 1 row of 3-4 small transparent glands (invisible from without), the orifice oblique, the triangular-aristate, reddish, commonly gland-spurred teeth subequal, (3.3) 3.5-4.6 mm long, at length stellately divergent and plumose; petals white, glandless, or the banner rarely with a small subapical gland and 1-2 small glands in the 2-lobed, greenish eye, the epistemonous ones perched below middle of androecium, (2) 2.2-4 mm above hypanthium; banner 5.7-7 mm long, the subterete claw (2.5) 2.7-3.5 mm, the ovate-spade-shaped blade 3.6-4 mm long, 3.2-4.2 mm wide, open at base but recessed down the claw into a shallow cornet; wings 2.8-4.1 mm long, the claw 0.4-1.2 mm, the obliquely ovate blade 2.7-3.4 mm long, 1.4-2 mm wide, its large basal auricle often as long as claw; keel 5.4-7 mm long, the claws 1-1.9 mm, the obliquely elliptic or half-elliptic blades (4.5) 4.8-5.8 mm long, 2.6-3 mm wide; androecium 9-merous, 6.3-9.4 mm long, the longer filaments free for 2.2-3.5 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers 0.85-1.15 mm long; pod obliquely triangular-obovoid, 3-3.7 mm long, the ventral suture prominently pored, the prow dilated, the valves hyaline in lower 34 thence papery, glandless or minutely gland- sprinkled, barbate distally; seed 2.4-2.8 mm long; 2n = 14 (Mosquin). — Collections: 161 (vii).

Plains and prairies, 30-1320 m (100-4400 ft), on a variety of sedimentary and alluvial soils but perhaps most vigorous on limestone, n.- and w.-ward mostly on bluffs, breaks, and badlands following streams and rivers, common and locally abundant from e.-centr. and n.-w. Texas, from the n. margin of Edwards Plateau, n. through the western 3/4 of Oklahoma and Kansas, thence more scattered and becoming rarer to the southern 1/3 of North Dakota, w. sparingly to the w. slope of the Black Hills in Wyoming, to w. Nebraska, extreme e. Colorado, the upper forks of the Canadian in n.-e. New Mexico and, apparently disjunctly, middle trans-Pecos Texas, e. to the bluffs of Missouri River from n.-w. Iowa downstream to n.-w. Missouri, in Texas e. to upper and middle Trinity River, s. to Balcones Escarpment, and along the lower Brazos River feebly out onto the Gulf Coastal Plain (Fort Bend Co.).— Flowering late June to September. —Representative: Wyoming: Degener & Peiler 16,018 (NY, OKLA). North Dakota: O. A. Stevens 381 (UC, WIS), 1389 (NY, UC). South Dakota: Rydberg 607 (NY); G. N. & F. F. Jones 14,898 (NY). Nebraska: Rydberg 55, 5956 (NY); Tolstead 41,1052 (UC). Iowa: Gleason 9304 (NY, WIS); Thome 14,675 (UC). Colorado: W A. Weber 4321 (UC), 12,961 (NY, WIS); Osterhout 4035 (NY, WIS). Kansas: Rydberg & Imler 618, 705 (NY); Barneby 13,808 (DAO, NY); Welsh 669 (NY). Missouri: Gleason 9277 (NY, WIS); Bush 220, 9183 (NY). New Mexico: Barneby 13,813 (NY). Oklahoma: Demaree 13,109 (NY, UC); Waterfall 1407, 6812 (NY). Texas: Reverchon 227 (NY, OKLA, UC); Mueller 8550 (NY, OKLA); Ruth 970 (NY, WIS); Lindheimer 757 (MO, NY, UC); Warnock 8013 (OKLA, RENNER).

Dalea enneandra (with 9 stamens) Nutt, in Frasers’ Cat., No. 30. 1813, reprinted by Greene, Pittonia 2: 116. 1890. — "...in Upper Louisiana, and principally on the River Missourie." — No typus examined, but long identified with the next following, D. laxiflora, for which it is the earlier name. — Parosela enneandra (Nutt.) Britt., Mem. Torrey Club 5: 196. 1894.

Dalea laxiflora (loosely flowered) Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 741. 1814, nom. illegit., the earlier D. enneandra cited in synonymy. — "In Upper Louisiana. Bradbury...v. s. in Herb. Bradbury." — Isotypus (fragm.), ex herb. Lambert., NY (herb. Torr.)! — Psoralea laxiflora (Pursh) Poir. in Lamk., Encycl. Suppl. 4: 590. 1816. Petalostemon laxiflorum (Pursh) Steud., Nom. Bot., ed. 2, 2: 308. 1841.

Cylipogon virgatum (wandlike) Raf., "Jour. Phys. Chim. Hist. Nat. 89: 97. 1819", reprinted in Isis van Oken 1820, 1: Lit. Anzug. 237. 1820. — "Haut-Missouri", Bradbury.— Listed here as a separate proposition, but probably based on and a mere substitute for D. laxiflora Pursh.

Dalea penicillata (brushlike, of the plumose calyx-teeth) Moric., PI. Nouv. d’Amer. 66, majore pro parte, Tab. XLV, fig. 1. 1839.— "Hab. in Texas. Inter Rio della Trinidad et Bexar, legit Berlandier. No. 1747, 2023." — Lectotypus, Berlandier 1747, collected in bud in June 1828, G! isotypus, OXF! paratypus, Berlandier 2023 (G) = D. pogonathera var. walkerae.

Dalea laxiflora var. pumila (lowly) Shinners, Field & Lab. 21: 164. 1953.— "Type: 2.4 miles west of Midlothian, Ellis Co., Texas, V. L. Cory 53337, July 2, 1946..." —Holotypus (SMU) not examined; isotypus, UC! paratypus, Whitehouse 10,515, NY!— Dalea enneandra var. pumila (Shinners) B. L. Turner, Leg. Tex. 153. 1959.

A plant of strongly idiosyncratic facies, almost never misidentified, in habit recalling some subtropical marinas, but no compatriot dalea. The primary stems, often solitary and seldom more than three from any root, are at first densely leafy. With the beginning of hot summer weather, as the first inflorescences come into flower, the cauline leaves begin to dry up and drop off, leaving a naked wand to bear aloft the indefinitely ramified, thinly leafy panicle of spikes. The small and ephemeral white petals are less seen than the silvery cup that holds them. As the fruit ripens, the pod and calyx, still wrapped at base in its dotted bract but with plumose teeth now stellately spread, disjoint as a unit and sail forth wind-borne on a five-rayed pappus. Despite its distinct appearence, the affinity of D. enneandra to D. pogonathera, also sometimes 9-androus, is obvious and never disputed. Common characters are the similar individual leaf, the broad, persistent, membranous- margined bract enclosing a similar long-toothed calyx, and the pod’s curiously dilated prow.

The species varies little except in stature. Shinners described as var. pumila a form, thought to replace the typical one in a small section of east-central Texas (e. of East Cross Timbers), distinguished by a short primary stem-axis and densely doming panicle. It was accepted by Turner (1959) but similar forms 5-6 dm tall (cf. Ripley & Barneby 7244; J. B. Norton 91; both NY) occur in Kansas.

The protologue of D. penicillata was based on two collections, one (in bud) representing D. enneandra, the other (at anthesis) D. pogonathera var. walkerae. Technically the name might be interpreted in either sense, but in order to preserve the well-known D. pogonathera Gray, junior to D. penicillata by ten years, I have designated as holotypus the D. enneandra element.