Dalea feayi

  • Title

    Dalea feayi

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea feayi (Chapm.) Barneby

  • Description

    44.  Dalea feayi (Chapman) Barneby

    (Plate LVII)

    Perennial from orange roots, at first herbaceous becoming suffruticose, 3-7 dm tall, when adult becoming a diffuse or hemispherical bush up to 1 m diam, glabrous except for minutely pilosulous spike-axis and tomentulose orifice of calyx, freely branching from the caudex upward, the old stems ± furrowed, the young ones stramineous often orange- or purple-tinged, minutely remotely microglandular, striate but not angular, going out into a few-headed panicle of subglobose heads, the copious but narrow and lacy foliage green, the leaflets smooth above, punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.2-1 mm long; stipules subulate or linear-lanceolate, livid, subglandular, becoming dry and fragile, 0.7-2 (2.5) mm long; intrapetiolular glands minute or 0; post-petiolular glands small, immersed or almost so; leaves short-petioled, the primary cauline ones 1.5-3.5 cm long, with narrowly thick-margined rachis and 7 or 9 rather distant, narrowly linear or vermiform, obtuse, sometimes gland-mucronulate, loosely folded to tightly involute, often arched leaflets up to (6) 7-12 (14) mm long, the terminal one almost sessile, longer than last pair, the leaflets of spur-leaves similar but smaller and mostly 3 or 5; peduncles truly 0 or very short, but the uppermost leaves often reduced to stipules or to a bract, the heads then raised well above functional leaves; spikes capitate, subglobose, without petals 7-9 mm diam, the lower calyces declined, the middle ones spreading, the uppermost ascending; bracts subtended by gland-spicules up to 0.6-1.2 mm long, subhomomorphic, ovate to broadly lanceolate, 0.8-2 mm long, firm, livid, subglandular, the small lowest ones persistent, deflexed, the inner tardily deciduous with the fruit; calyx oblong-spindle-shaped, bluntly angled, 3.2-4.4 mm long, glabrous externally, the tube 2.5-3.4 mm long, deeply recessed behind banner, the ribs obscure, the intervals heavily castaneous- flecked, charged distally with 1-3 small blister-glands, the teeth of nearly equal length, the 3 dorsal subulate, the ventral pair ovate, all green externally, tomentulose within; petals pink, rarely lavender or white, concolorous, glandless; banner 4.4-5.2 mm long, the broad, flattened claw 2-2.6 mm long, the scoop-shaped, strongly hooded blade truncate to very broadly cuneate or shallowly cordate at base, emarginate at apex, 2.1-2.6 mm long, 1.8-2.5 mm wide; epistemonous petals 3.6-4.6 mm long, the oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, obtuse, apically hooded blades 2.6-3.5 mm long, contracted into a claw 0.9-1.7 mm long; androecium 6.5-9.2 mm long, the column 3-4.8 mm, the free filaments 3.5-5 mm long, the connective gland-tipped, the orange anthers ± 0.8 mm long; pod obliquely clavate-obovate in profile, 3-3.3 mm long, the short thick ventral suture shorter than the pod, the style-base lateral, the prow thickened, broadly rounded, the valves glabrous below the pilosulous style, at base pallid, thence livid, lustrous, wrinkled; seeds (little known) up to 2.2 mm long; 2n = 14 (Wemple, 1970, p. 12). — Collections: 21 (o, sed pluries v.v.).

    Scrub barrens, open pinewoods, characteristically on sterile white sand, locally abundant in centr. peninsular Florida from Lake Okeechobee n. to Marion County, apparently disjunctly in w. Florida where coming out to the Gulf shore in Franklin County; somewhat isolated on Altamaha River in s.-e. Georgia (Long County); cf. Wemple, 1970, map 3.— Flowering June to October and (s.-ward) intermittently through winter and spring .—Representative: Georgia: Harper 1995 (NY). Florida: Godfrey et al 53,463 (NY); Krai 7676 (NY); Nash 1523, 1524 (NY, UC); Curtiss 6699 (NY, UC); Moldenke 5360 (NY); Isely & Wemple 9316, 9330 (NY).

    Dalea feayi (Chapman) Barneby, comb. nov., based on Petalostemon feayi (William T. Feay, ± 1803-1879) Chapman, F. S. U.S., ed. 2, 615. 1884. — "Bartow, South Florida (Feay)" — Holotypus, labelled "Florida, Feay", US (hb. Chapman.)! isotypi, GH, NY (herb. Canby.)! — Kuhnistera feayi (Chapm.) Nash, Bull. Torrey Club 22: 149. 1895.

    An elegantly delightful, almost ever-blooming bushy herb, notable for its extremely narrow leaflets and small subglobose heads of rose-pink, less often lavender, exceptionally white flowers. Its relationship, as perceived by Rydberg (1920, p. 124) and by Wemple (1970, p. 36, fig. 9D) is certainly with D. carnea sens, lat., but this cannot be extremely close for D. feayi occurs within the range of each of the major races of D. carnea without sign of hybridization. Most forms of D. carnea are found in a less specialized habitat, in the flat pinewoods and palmetto scrubland that is seasonally moist or inundated. The adaptation of D. feayi to the severe xerophytic regime of the white sandhills, where it is associated with Ceriatiola, Polygonella, and Conradina, all modified to resist periods of desiccation without injury, may well be a determinant of its discontinuous range.