Daleae Imagines page 677 plate XLII

  • Title

    Daleae Imagines page 677 plate XLII

  • Creator(s)

    R. C. Barneby

  • Publisher

    The New York Botanical Garden Press

  • Description

    PLATE XLII Dalea cliffortiana Willd., the original Dalea of Linnaeus, is a common, locally abundant, weedy, fall- and winter-flowering annual herb of fields, roadsides, and arid grasslands, ranging from sea-level up into the oak-belt at ± 1800 m (6000 ft) almost throughout the arid tropical lowlands of Mexico and central America, s.-ward on the Pacific coast from Sinaloa and from Vera Cruz on the Gulf. It occurs also, fully established but doubtfully native, in n. Venezuela and coastal Ecuador, and has been naturalized since early XIX century in the Philippine Islands. The stiffly wiry, sharp-angled stems, the few leaflets, and the dense, conelike spikes of persistent, pale-margined, dorsally glandular bracts are characteristic. Note the long-clawed banner, which opens white but fades pinkish, and the small caducous inner petals, perched high on the androecial column and all free even in the bud, which are commonly vivid blue but sometimes violet- or pinkish-purple. The species varies much in size of the bracts and calyces, in thickness of the spikes, and in the number of stamens, which may be either nine or ten. Being autogamous, the plants reduplicate themselves in pure lines and two or more forms showing various combinations of the variable characters can and do occur in close proximity without intergrading. — Habit × 1; leaflets and stipules × 5; the rest × 10. Left, a common form of D. cliffortiana with lance-acuminate bracts in several ranks combined with a 9-merous androecium: 1) habit; 2) stipules; 3) inner bract, dorsal view; 4) fruiting calyx; 5) banner, ventral view; 6) wing; 7) keel, ventro-lateral view; 8) androecium; 9) pod. Right, a slender form of the same with few-ranked, obovate and abruptly acuminate bracts and a 10-merous androecium: 1) habit; 2) leaflets; 3) inner bract, dorsal view; 4) outer bract + flower; 5) flower, ventral view; 6) androecium.

  • Taxonomy

    Dalea cliffortiana Willd.

  • Copyright Statement

    Copyright The New York Botanical Garden Press

  • License Statement

    Image may not be reproduced without the permission of The New York Botanical Garden Press

  • Cite This Image

    Image may not be reproduced without the permission of The New York Botanical Garden Press

  • Image Type

    Illustration