Errazurizia megacarpa

Title

Errazurizia megacarpa

Authors

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Errazurizia megacarpa (S.Watson) I.M.Johnst.

Description

2.  Errazurizia megacarpa (Watson) I. Johnston

(Plate I)

Softly woody, when bruised strong-scented subshrubs up to 6-10 dm tall, the many stems forming weakly straggling thickets or more densely branched, globose bushes up to 1 m diam, tomentulose throughout with fine short entangled (and often some longer, spreading) hairs up to 0.15-0.3 mm long, the stems very densely so, white-felted, densely charged with emergent orange or livid, grainlike or mammiform glands, the foliage either white or greenish-cinerous, the leaflets equally pubescent both sides, charged beneath with few small blister-glands; stipules subulate or linear, stiff but not prickly, 0.7-1.4 mm long, when young tipped with a gland, becoming dry and early deciduous; post-petiolular glands small, grainlike; leaves (2) 3-7 cm long, with ventrally flattened or shallowly grooved rachis and (3) 4-8 pairs of opposite or scattered, suborbicular-emarginate to obcordate or broadly obovate and retuse, flat, thick- textured, shortly thick-petiolulate leaflets (3) 4-10 mm long; spikes both terminal to branchlets and appearing leaf-opposed, sessile or nearly so, loosely or in early anthesis subcompactly (10) 15-70¹, rarely up to 120-flowered, the flowers and fruits ascending, the densely tomentulose and gland-sprinkled axis becoming (3) 4-25 long; bracts deciduous before or at least with full anthesis, narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate or linear, navicular, herbaceous, tomentulose externally, glabrous within, gland-tipped; brac- teoles represented by prominent blister-glands; calyx 5.4-7 mm long, sparsely glandular and tomentulose like the foliage, bluntly pentagonal, the campanulate tube (viewed in profile more convex dorsally) 3.2-5 mm long, 3.2-4.3 mm diam, from just above hypanthium rim 11-nerved, the ovate or oblong-ovate teeth of nearly equal length, 1.8-2.5 mm long, 1-1.7 mm wide, the ventral pair commonly a little broader than the rest, all obscurely reticulate-veined, the tube distended by the fruit, not ruptured; petals carnosulous, bright yellow, fading orange, finally brown and marcescent, the banner often thinly pilosulous dorsally at middle, the rest glabrous; banner ovate- or obovate-cuneate, emarginate or retuse, 5.8-7 mm long, 3.6-4.5 mm wide, scarcely or slightly longer than the longest calyx-tooth; wings and keel-petals all similar, the keel sometimes a trifle shorter, obliquely oblanceolate, 5-6.8 mm long, entire or obliquely emarginate, 1.3-2.4 mm wide near apex, tapering downward into the claw; androecium 9-merous, 3.8-4.7 mm long, the filaments (alternately longer and shorter, the dorsal one longest, free for 1.3-1.8 mm) attenuate distally, the connective glandless, the pallid anthers 0.6-0.7 mm long; ovules 2, not exactly collateral, only 1 developing; pod ovoid-ellipsoid, much exserted from calyx, 8-10 mm long, 5.2-6 mm diam, in profile somewhat oblique, the slender ventral suture less convex than the dorsal one, heavily callous-crested in the distal the valves at first carnosulous, becoming papery, in the lower 1/3 glabrous and lustrous, thence pilosulous and densely granular- glandular, the hairs mostly retrorse proximally and antrorse distally; style 1.7-2 mm long, curved upward, charged at the bend with a prominent gland, the stigma capitate- peltiform; seed ellipsoid, compressed, 5.5-7 mm long, 3.3-4.5 mm diam, the testa smooth, ochraceous varying through castaneous-purple to nearly black, the hilum situated ± 1 mm from base, recessed into a minute well. — Collections: 33 (o).

Sandy and rocky washes, bajadas, bluffs and beaches, 5-200 m, locally plentiful around the shores of upper Gulf of California, on the Baja California side extending from vicinity of Santa Rosalia and Isla San Marcos near lat. 27° N to and shortly beyond San Felipe near 31° 20' N, inland to Calamajue, El Marmol, and Llanos de San Julian, crossing the Gulf by way of Islas Angel de la Guardia and Tiburon to scattered stations on the Sonoran coast between Tiburon and Cabo Tepoca at ± 29° 15' N. — Flowering February to May .—Representative: Sonora: Johnston 3294 (NY, UC); Ripley 14,315 (CAS, NY); Gentry 4490 (UC). Baia California (Norte): Johnston 3348 (NY, UC); Palmer 522 (NY, UC); Gentry 11,727 (MEXU, RENNER); Wiggins 7706 (DS, F). Baia California (Sur): Palmer 182 (F, NY, US); Wiggins 11,397 (UC); Ferris 8753 (NY).