Dalea saffordii

  • Title

    Dalea saffordii

  • Authors

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea saffordii (Rose) Bullock

  • Description

    125.  Dalea saffordii (Rose) Bullock

    (Plate CX)

    Low tortuous or more erect and slender, twiggily branching shrubs up to 5-15 dm tall, glabrous to the inflorescence, the old wood becoming furrowed and striped lengthwise, the young branches smooth, castaneous or livid, glandless or almost so, the sparse foliage mostly deciduous before anthesis, the small, thick-textured leaflets green above, paler and punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.4-1.6 mm long; stipules triangular-subulate, 0.7-1.3 mm long, firmly papery, livid, persistent; intrapetiolular glands 0; post-petiolular glands prominent, conic, usually purple; leaves subsessile, the main cauline ones (little known) up to 1-1.6 cm long, with thick-margined punctate rachis and 5-9 crowded pairs of obovate to oblong-elliptic or oblanceolate, emarginate, mostly folded and dorsally carinate leaflets ± 1.5-3 mm, the leaves of spurs contemporaneous with the flowers smaller, mostly 4-10 mm long, with only (2) 3-5 pairs of smaller leaflets; spikes terminal to main branches and to short axillary spurs, pedunculate or sessile, the peduncle not over 2 cm long, the spike ovoid-capitate becoming subglobose to shortly oblong in outline, dense but not conelike, without petals (8) 9-14 mm diam, the densely pilosulous axis becoming 5-15 mm long; bracts deciduous, dimorphic, the lowest ovate-acuminate to obovate-flabellate, resembling stipules in color and texture, 1.5-3.5 mm long, glabrous dorsally, ciliolate, the interfloral ones broadly lance- to narrowly elliptic-acuminate, 3.5-5.5 mm long, pilosulous dorsally and plumose-ciliolate, usually livid or castaneous distally, glabrous within; calyx sessile or almost so, 4.8-7.7 mm long, densely pilose with fine, at length spreading hairs up to 0.8-2 mm long, the tube (measured to a dorsal sinus) 2.4-3.1 mm long, moderately recessed behind banner, the ribs thick, becoming prominent and castaneous, the rather firm intervals glandless or charged with 1-3 minute golden glands visible only from within, the triangular-aristate at length stellately spreading teeth (2.2) 2.6-4.7 mm long, the dorsal one longest (up to 1.7 mm longer, rarely a trifle shorter than tube), all gland-spurred and plumose except for sometimes glabrate tips; petals bicolored, the whitish or pale yellow banner early rubescent, sometimes gland- sprinkled, the epistemonous ones perched low on androecium (0.8-1.4 mm above hypanthium), all (or banner only, or keel only) charged with a subapical gland; banner 6.6-7.2 mm long, the claw 2.9-4.4 mm, the deltate-ovate, hooded blade 2.8-4 mm long, 3-3.8 mm wide, the basal lobes involute-adherent to form lateral pockets; wings 6.1-7.5 mm long, the claw 1.8-2.5 mm, the oblong-elliptic or -lanceolate blade 4.4-5.5 mm long, 1.9-2.4 mm wide; keel 6.2-9.5 mm long, the claws 2-3.6 mm, the broadly elliptic blade 4.2-6.3 mm long, 2.6-3.5 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 6-9 mm long, the filaments free for 2.2-3.5 mm; pod (not seen ripe) obliquely triangular in profile, 3-3.5 mm long, the style-base excentrically terminal, the valves membranous and glabrous in lower 34 thence thinly herbaceous, pilosulous, minutely gland-sprinkled; seed not seen.— Collections: 7 (o).

    Rocky hillsides and canyon-benches, 2250-2800 m (± 7300-9300 ft), on limestone, apparently very local, known only from the w. slope of n. Sierra Madre Oriental and detached but related desert ranges immediately to the w. in mpos Arteaga, Saltillo, and Parras in s.-w. Coahuila and mpo Galeana in adjoining Nuevo Leon. — Flowering February to June. —Material: Coahuila. Parras: Sa. de Parras, M. C. Johnston 10,993 (TEX); Sa. Pata Galana, Purpus 1068 (F, NY, UC). Saltillo: canyon s. of Saltillo, Hinton 16,736 (US). Arteaga: "12-14 leagues s." of Saltillo, Palmer 208 (NY, US); 35 mi e. of Saltillo (5-6 mi e. of Lirios), McVaugh 12,324 (MEXU, MICH). Nuevo Leon. Galeana: s.-e. of Galeana, Rzedowski 27,174 (ENCB).

    Dalea saffordii (Rose) Bullock, Kew Bull. 1939: 198. 1939, based on Parosela saffordii (William Edwin Safford, 1859-1926) Rose, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 12: 273. 1909.— Collected by William E. Safford, February 3, 1907 (no. 1246). The same species was collected in 1880 (no. 208) Dr. E. Palmer..." — Holotypus, Safford 1246, US! paratypi, Palmer 208, cit. supra.

    A small, gnarled, highly xerophytic shrub, the richly colored flowers large in proportion to the foliage. The species has been collected seldom, but flowers in late winter and spring, the dry season in its desert range, when few botanists are about. As often in sect. Parosela, the specific distinctness of D. saffordii is more easily discerned than its affinities. Rydberg (1920, p. 107) aligned it with D. formosa in a little group composed of these two species with the quite distinct D. purpusi of Baja California; his concept of it, however, was adulterated by a specimen of D. versicolor var. calcarata from Durango (Palmer 138, NY), a mistake to which may be traced the supposed occurrence of D. saffordii in Sierra Madre Occidental. While I agree that it belongs in the circle of affinity with D. versicolor sens, lat., I suspect a closer relationship to the marginally sympatric D. radicans, which it much resembles in fine detail of foliage, stipules, and flower (especially the banner), although strikingly different in its more erect habit, densely plumose calyx, and longer calyx-teeth.