Dalea neo-mexicana var. longipila

  • Title

    Dalea neo-mexicana var. longipila

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea neomexicana var. longipila (Rydb.) Barneby

  • Description

    4b. Dalea neo-mexicana (Gray) Cory var. longipila (Rydberg) Barneby

    (Plate XXXI)

    Habit of var. neo-mexicana, but the leaflets obovate (not obcordate), charged dorsally with small glands (cf. key to varieties), the margins plane; inflorescence and flower essentially as var. neo-mexicana. — Collections: 23 (iii).

    Stony hillsides and sandy clay knolls in the foothills of desert mountains, sometimes on gypseous shale, most often on linestone, 340-1800 m (1130-5400 ft), local and (as known) apparently discontinuous, frequent in s.-e. quarter of Coahuila (mpos Parras to Cuatro Cienegas, Monclova, Saltillo) and adjoining n.-w. Nuevo Leon (Sabinas Hidalgo to Monterrey), s. (habitat not recorded) along e. piedmont of Sierra Madre to centr. Tamaulipas (Cd. Victoria); apparently disjunctly on limestone hills along and immediately n. of Rio Grande upstream from mouth of Pecos River into e. Brewster County, Texas, to be expected in n.-e. Coahuila. — Flowering March to June, August to November. — Representative: UNITED STATES. Texas: Correll & Johnston 19,334 (RENNER); Turner & Warnock 2050 (TEX). MEXICO. Coahuila: Palmer 16 in 1898 (F, NY, UC); Ripley & Barneby 13,276 (MEXU, NY, US); Purpus 1066 (F, NY, UC); Ripley 14,942 (NY); Johnston 8731 (GH, TEX). Nuevo Leon: Warnock & Barkley 14827M (F, TEX); Ripley & Barneby 13,804 (CAS, NY). Tamaulipas: Palmer 519 (NY).

    Dalea neo-mexicana (Gray) Cory var. longipila (Rydb.) Barneby, stat. nov., based on Parosela longipila (long-haired) Rydb., N. Amer. Fl. 24: 64. 1919.— "Type collected in western Texas, October, 1849, Wright 126..." — Holotypus, GH!—Dalea longipila (Rydb.) Cory, Rhodora 38: 406. 1936. D. mollis var. longipila B. L. Robins, ex Rydb., 1. c. in syn.

    In almost all respects like var. neo-mexicana, but readily recognized in practice by the plane, obovate, emarginate but not widely notched leaflets charged on the back with smaller glands. The difference in leaflets is of the same order as between D. mollis and D. mollissima on the Sonoran Desert, but these differ further in shape of bracts and wing- petals, and moreover are broadly sympatric, whereas vars. neo-mexicana and longipila have essentially identical flowers and are vicariant, their ranges contiguous in trans-Pecos Texas (Brewster County) but separated in northern Mexico by that of var. megaladenia in the low deserts around and related to Bolson de Mapimi. Despite the epithet, the vesture of var. longipila is not uniformly longer, and slight differences in the shape of petals noted by Rydberg (in key, 1919, p. 50) have not been confirmed in recent collections. If emphasis is shifted from the one palpable difference to the multiple similarities it becomes reasonable to treat D. neo-mexicana and D. longipila as aspects of one marked specific type.

    The epithet longipila having been used by Robinson only in annotation, and that in a context remote from that in which was published, it is attributed here solely to Rydberg.