Dalea Boliviana

  • Title

    Dalea Boliviana

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea boliviana Britton

  • Description

    91.  Dalea Boliviana Britton

    (Plate LXXXVIII)

    Diffuse or prostrate herbs, the stramineous, low-tuberculate (or under the spikes densely verruculose), simple and monocephalous or distally few-branching stems (0.5) 1-4.5 dm long, radiating from a woody root or sometimes thickened and knotty caudex, appearing glabrous to the inflorescence, sometimes truly so, but the young stems, the leaf-stalks, and sometimes the midrib or margins or lower face (or some of them) of the leaflets thinly pilosulous with ascending hairs up to 0.2-0.55 mm long, the nodes of young shoots sometimes woolly-villosulous, the thick-textured foliage pallid-green or glaucescent, the leaflets smooth above, punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.4-0.9 mm long; stipules narrowly lanceolate to subulate, 1-3.5 mm long, pallid or commonly livid-castaneous, usually ciliolate; intrapetiolular glands 2, impressed; post-petiolular glands a little larger, prominent; leaves sessile or short-petioled, the main cauline ones 1-3 cm long, with margined, ventrally grooved rachis and (3) 4-8 (9) pairs of either distant or crowded, broadly oblong-obovate, obovate-emar- ginate, or deeply obcordate, loosely folded or flat and marginally elevated, dorsally keeled leaflets up to (2) 2.5-6 (7) mm long; peduncles 1-5(6) cm long; spikes moderately dense, the flowers subcontiguous but (pressed) not fully concealing the axis, at first bluntly ovoid becoming oblong or finally cylindroid, without petals 8-12 mm diam, the pilosulous axis becoming (1) 1.5-6 (7) cm long; bracts persistent, clasping the buds and base of mature calyces, subhomomorphic (the lowest, especially of aborting buds, relatively firm and narrow), the majority 3.5-5.5 mm long, the body elliptic- obovate, navicular, 3-4.5 mm long, in profile 1.1-1.7 mm wide, with broad pallid scarious margins and firm greenish or livid keel and tip, dorsally glabrous or thinly pilosulous, glandular, often ciliolate distally, contracted or attenuate into a firm livid nearly always pilosulous tail 0.5-2 mm long; calyx 4.3-6.1 mm long, softly densely pilose-pilosulous with ascending, finally spreading hairs up to (0.5) 0.6-1.2 mm long, the tube 3-4 mm, oblique at orifice, the slender, concolorous or livid ribs becoming prominulous, the membranous intervals charged with 1 row of 3-4 small distant glands commonly visible only from within, the teeth unequal, triangular-cuspidate, green or livid, gland-spurred, the dorsal one 1.2-2.3 mm long (1.2-2.2 mm shorter than tube), the ventral pair shortest and broadest; petals bicolored, the banner white with often colored basal lobes, often gland-sprinkled in the eye, rubescent, the epistemonous ones bright blue or amethystine-violet, often pallid along outer edges, gland-tipped or not, perched well below middle of hypanthium (1.6-2.6 mm above hypanthium); banner 5.1-8.5 mm long, sometimes as long as detached keel, commonly a little shorter, the claw (1.9) 2.2-4 mm, the deltate-cordate blade (3) 3.8-5.1 mm long, (3.2) 4.2-5.2 mm wide, open at base but the lobes ± adherent laterally; wings 4.7 -6.9 mm long, the claw 1.6-2.6 mm, the blades 3.1-4.8 mm long, 1.6-2.5 mm wide; keel (6.8) 7-9.5 mm long, the claws (2.3) 2.5-3.6 mm, the blades (4.3) 4.5-6.4 mm long, (2.8) 3-4 mm wide; androecium 6.5-11 mm long, the longer filaments free for 2.2-3.4 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers 0.7-1.05 mm long, the five alternate ones sometimes much smaller; pod 2.6-3 mm long, essentially as in D. exilis.—Collections: 40 (o).

    Stony steppes and open rocky hillsides, 2500-4000 m, widely dispersed and locally common on the Andean Plateau e. of the Divide, from the headwaters of the Apurimac-Montaro in Ayacucho and Cuzco, Peru, s.-e. (common) through Bolivia (La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre) into Jujuy, Argentina, and on, apparently rarer, to w. Tucuman (Tafi) and Catamarca (Andalgala).— Flowering mostly February to May, in Peru sometimes into July .—Representative: PERU. Ayacucho: Weberbauer 5526 (F, US); J. West 3661 (UC). Cuzco: Hill 137 (K); Herrera 3042 (F); Soukup 404 (F). BOLIVIA. La Paz: Bang 106 (F, K, NY, US); Buchtien 134 (F, NY), 555 (F, NY, US). Cochabamba: typus of D. retusifolia. Sucre: Hammarlund 385 (NY). Potosi: Balls 6060 (K). ARGENTINA. Jujuy: Venturi 4960 (F, UC, US), 6620 (US), 8725 (K, US), 9357 (K, US); Balls 5971 (F, K, UC, US). Salta: Venturi 6856 (US). Tucuman: Venturi 6619 (US). Catamarca: Sleumer 2743 (US); Jorgensen 1629 (US).

    Dalea boliviana (of Bolivia) Britt., Bull. Torrey Club 16: 259. 1889 ("Boliviano.").— "Near La Paz ...Rusby 959." — Holotypus, collected in Apr. 1885, NY! isotypi, F, GH, K, NY (2 sheets), US (2 sheets)! —Parosela boliviana (Britt.) Macbr., Contrib. Gray Herb., New Ser. 65: 23. 1922.

    Dalea retusifolia (with notched leaflets) Harms ap. O. Kze., Rev. Gen. 32: 59. 1898.—"Bolivia: Tiraqui." —Holotypus, collected by Otto Kunze, Apr 1-4, 1892, at 3600 m, near Tiraque, dept. Cochabamba, formerly B, survives as Field Neg. 2041! isotypus, NY (herb. Kze.)!

    Dalea hofstenii (G. von Hofsten, accompanied Fries in Argentina) R. E. Fries, Nov. Act. Soc. Sci. Upsal. IV, 1: 132. 1905. —"Prov. Jujuy: Yavi, 3400 m.s.m. (2 Jan., 1902; Fr. 777); Cochinoca, ca 3300 m.s.m. (10 Febr. 1901; Kurtz 11635); Moreno in montibus saxosis, 3500 m.s.m. (15 Dec., 1901; Fr. 927). — Holotypus (U), not examined; paratypus, R. E. Fries 927, US! — Parosela hofstenii (R. E. Fries) Macbr., Field Mus., Bot. 4: 108. 1927.

    Dalea calliantha (with pretty flowers) Ulbr., Feddes Repert. 2: 11. 1906. — "Austro- Bolivia: Prope Puna Patanca...3800 m.s.m. (K. Fiebrig; Plantae austro-bolivienses 1903 bis 1904 No. 3189 legit 26. III. 1904.)." —Holotypus, formerly B, survives as Field Neg. 2032! isotypi, F, GH, K, US! — Parosela calliantha (Ulbr.) Macbr., Contrib. Gray Herb., New Ser. 65: 23. 1922.

    Parosela boliviana var. herrerae (Fortunato Luciano Herrera y Garmendia) Macbr., Field Mus., Bot. 4: 106. 1927.— "PERU: ...San Sebastian, Dept, of Cusco, April 25, 1925, Pennell 13602..." — Holotypus, F! phototypus, Field Neg. 50,193! paratypi, Herrera in 1923, Cook & Gilbert 322, from Cuzco and Ollantaytambo respectively, both US!

    Southward from Ayacucho in Peru D. boliviana is the only high Andean dalea with short (1-4.5 dm) prostrate stems from a perennial root-crown or shortly forked woody caudex. Through its range it is associated successively with D. smithii in Peru, D. pazensis in Bolivia, and D. elegans in extreme southern Bolivia and Argentina; all of these are normally taller plants, or suffruticose, or if no taller then erect, and distinguished further, if habit is in doubt, by more numerous and longer leaflets. The habitally similar but apparently annual D. tapacariensis, known from only one station in Cochabamba, has smaller flowers with only the wing-tips blue. At its north limit D. boliviana is not too clearly distinguished from D. exilis (see discussion of that species); but with the possible exception of D. tapacariensis it has no close relative southward from Lago Titicaca.

    The complex synonymy attributed to D. boliviana suggests a species much more variable than is actually the case. In the Titicaca basin, the type-region, the larger cauline leaves are 2 cm long or more and composed of some 6-8 pairs of oblong-obovate, truncate- emarginate but usually not deeply retuse leaflets glabrous except for a few hairs along the margins and dorsal keel; and the epistemonous petals are normally vivid cobalt blue.  Macbride segregated from this a Peruvian var. herrerae, supposed to differ from the Bolivian type in being more nearly glabrous. We now have ample material both from the Vilcanota valley around Cuzco and from La Paz, and find no substantial difference in vesture. The collections of var. herrerae from Ayacucho, here referred to D. boliviana because of the large calyx and petals, are on the other hand suggestive of passage into the vicariant D. exilis; among other things they are intermediate in size of anthers (0.5-0.7 mm long). In southern Bolivia and Argentina the average larger cauline leaves of D. boliviana become shorter (1-2 cm) and more condensed, with fewer (3-6) pairs of abbreviated and broadly obovate-obcordate, widely and deeply retuse leaflets, and the epistemonous petals are amethystine purple, of the same or nearly the same color as those of D. elegans var. elegans. In this area the stipules, also, tend to be shorter and relatively broader than in populations around La Paz. Leaflets of the broader retuse type may be, just like the obovate leaflets northward, either glabrous or thinly pilosulous dorsally, and are not consistently fewer, nor reliably correlated with petal-color. At La Paz itself Buch- tien collected two otherwise identical examples of D. boliviana in one locality, carefully noting the petals of one (no. 31, US) as "violett" and of the other (no. 32, US) as "blau". Moreover at the northwest limit of D. boliviana in Ayacucho the leaflets become as few as in Argentina but retain the outline of the common north Bolivian phase. Even in Jujuy the short, obcordate leaflet, although certainly prevalent, is not truly constant (cf. Venturi 4960, US). I am therefore unable to follow Burkart (1952, p. 253) in recognizing D. hofstenii as a discrete species, even though it corresponds with a fairly well-marked geographic trend. Except for leaflet-number, no serious differential character has ever been attributed to D. retusifolia, D. hofstenii or D. calliantha. Harms, deploring the lack of a generic monograph, compared D. retusifolia with the totally unlike and unrelated D. en- neaphylla W., noting however that it seemed to differ from D. boliviana in a longer calyx (untrue) and purple petals (a point discussed above). The type-collection of D. calliantha is a series of starved plants gathered at early anthesis, apparently from an exceptionally arid or exposed habitat. The type-locality is in extreme southern Bolivia south of Tarija, where the variant described independently as D. hofstenii becomes common.

    This species was collected first in 1864, by the Veitch collector Richard Pearce (K).