Dalea carthagenensis (Jacq.) J.F.Macbr.

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Authority

    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.

  • Family

    Fabaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea carthagenensis (Jacq.) J.F.Macbr.

  • Description

    Species Description - Slender shrubs, sometimes flowering precociously as suffrutescent herbs, becoming 6-20 dm tall, freely and repeatedly branched upward, the pale brown or purplish branches sparsely verruculose, the young stems and foliage varying from densely villosulous or silky-pilosulous to glabrous, the inflorescences always villosulous to silky- barbate, the leaflets bicolored, the upper surface green (rarely silvery-pubescent), the lower paler and punctate; leaf-spurs less than 1 mm long; stipules narrowly triangular-subulate, firm, 0.6-1.5 mm long, often puberulent; intrapetiolular glands 2, variable in size; post-petiolular glands prominent; leaves dimorphic, the primary cauline ones drought-deciduous, sometimes already fallen by anthesis, shortly petioled or subsessile, 1.5-7 cm long, with narrowly margined rachis and (7) 9-17, more rarely up to 25 obovate, broadly elliptic, ovate-oblong, or oblong-elliptic, obtuse or emarginate, sometimes gland-mucronate, flat leaflets 4-18 (20) mm long, the leaves of axillary spurs and short-shoots small, with fewer and often smaller leaflets; spikes numerous, usually both pedunculate and sessile, sometimes all sessile, the leaf-opposed peduncles produced early in the season terminal to primary divisions of the panicle, up to 1-3.5 cm long, the sessile spikes mostly terminal to axillary, often greatly condensed short-shoots, the whole inflorescence either loosely cymose-paniculate or virgate-spiciform; spikes either loose, the flowers falling into ± 3 ranks when pressed, or remaining dense and capitate (but not conelike), (3) 5-30-flowered, the villosulous axis becoming 2-20 (30) mm long; bracts tardily deciduous, ovate-acuminate or -caudate, clasping the base of calyx, 2.3-6.5 mm long, firm, dorsally gross-glandular and either villosulous or medially glabrescent; calyx mostly 5-8.8 mm, in South American forms sometimes only 3.8-6 mm long, villosulous from base upward or the tube glabrescent, the teeth always plumose-plumulose with finally spreading hairs up to 0.6-1.1 mm long, the tube (measured to a dorsal sinus) 2-3.4 mm long, its orifice oblique but not recessed abruptly behind banner, the ribs prominent, the intercostal membranes charged with 2-8 small, distinct, either prominent and blisterlike or immersed and externally invisible glands, the triangular-aristate, straight or slightly sigmoid, gland-spurred teeth erect or eventually stellate, subequal in length, the dorsal one (1.5) 2.2-5.6 mm long, in North America always and in South America usually as long or much longer than tube; petals greenish-white or -cream at early anthesis, soon fading dull brownish-purple or maroon, the epistemonous ones perched well below middle of androecium, all (or all but wings) charged with a prominent subapical gland, the eye of the banner usually gland-sprinkled; banner 3.1-6.4 mm long, the claw 1.4-2.8 mm, the deltate-cordate, ± hooded blade 1.7-5.7 mm long, 1.7-3.7 mm wide, recessed at base into an at least shallow comet; wings 3.3-5.3 mm long, the claw (0.9) 1-1.6 mm, the obliquely ovate-oblong blade 2.3-4.2 mm long, 1.2-2 mm wide; keel (4) 4.2-8.1 mm long, the claws (1) 1.4-3.2 mm, the obliquely ovate or half-obovate blades 2.3-5.7 mm long, 1.4-3.2 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 5.2-9 mm long, the filaments cleft into a short tassel, the connective prominently gland-tipped; pod deltate or triangular-obovate in profile, 2.3-2.7 mm long, the ventral suture straight or notched at the pore, the style terminal or at the comer, the prow subfiliform, the valves hyaline in lower half, thinly papery, densely gland-sprinkled and villosulous distally.

  • Discussion

    (Plates CXXV-CXXVII)

    A polymorphic species of immense, discontinuous dispersal, very closely related to D. scandens, from which it cannot be separated by any one known differential character of substance. The problem is discussed under the heading of ser. Thyrsiflorae. Nine geographic races are described in the following pages, and are most conveniently separated by an artificial key based in the first instance on factors of dispersal.