Dalea lutea var. gigantea
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Title
Dalea lutea var. gigantea
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Authors
Rupert C. Barneby
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Scientific Name
Dalea lutea var. gigantea (Rose ex Rydb.) Barneby
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Description
130c. Dalea lutea (Cavanilles) Willdenow var. gigantea (Rose) Barneby
(Plate CXV)
Shrubby or arborescent when adult, up to 1-4 m tall, but precociously flowering as a monopodial, suffrutescent herb; stems and foliage always pubescent, the young branches densely shaggy-hirsutulous with subhorizontal, straight or wavy hairs up to 0.6-1 mm long, the leaflets more thinly so, nigrescent in drying; leaflets of primary leaves (4) 5-10 (14) mm long; spikes 2-15 cm long; calyx 4.4-6.2 mm long, the tube glabrous externally, the dorsal tooth 2-3.2 mm long; petals opening greenish-cream, early turning greenish-brown or black, relatively small, the keel-blades (4.6) 5-6 mm long; androecium ± 6.5-8.5 mm long. — Collections: 32 (iii).
Brushy and openly wooded hill country, often in oak or oak-pine woodland, sometimes persisting in grassland successional to cut-over forest, in more mesic sites than var. lutea, 1100-2200 (in Guatemala reportedly 3000) m, of bicentric dispersal: s. slope of Neovolcanic Belt in s.-e. Jalisco, e. Michoacan and s.-e. Mexico; also in highland Chiapas and locally abundant through s. Guatemala into Intibuca, Honduras.—Flowering August to December. —Representative: MEXICO. Jalisco: Faberge s. n., from Sayula (TEX). Michoacan: Pringle 13,517 (ARIZ, M); Ripley & Barneby 14,818 (CAS, DAO, NY). Mexico: Matuda 27,110 (MEXU, NY); Hinton 875 (MEXU, NY); Ripley & Barneby 14,867 (DAO, NY, US). Chiapas: Ghiesbreght 581 (NY); Breedlove 9742, 13,749 (US). GUATEMALA. Huehuetenango: Standley 65,671 (F, NY); Steyermark 50,342 (F). El Quiche: Aguilar 840 (F). Quetzaltenango: Standley 83,889 (F). Solola: Williams & Molina 27,261 (NY). Chimaltenango: Standley 61,622 (F). Sacatepequez: Standley 61,251 (F, NY). Escuintla: Aguilar 1756 (F). Guatemala: Molina et al. 15,963 (NY). Jalapa: Steyermark 32,297 (F, see discussion below). HONDURAS. Intibuca: Molina 8738 (NY).Dalea lutea (Cav.) Willd. var. gigantea (Rose) Barneby, stat. nov., based on Parosela gigantea (immense, of the great stature) Rose ex Rydb., N. Amer. Fl. 24: 110. 1920.— "Type collected at Tarascon, Michoacan, October 11, 1904, Pringle 8848..." — Holotypus, US! isotypi, GH, K, L, M, MEXU, NY, UC, W, Z! — Dalea gigantea (Rose) Bullock, Kew Bull. 1939: 196. 1939.
Dalea cinerea Moric. ex Micheli ap. Donn. Sm., Bot. Gaz. 20: 283. 1895. — "Santiago, Depart. Zacatepequez, Guat., alt. 6,500 ft., 1891, Rosalio Gomez, no 999. — Embaulada, Depart. Zacatepequez, Guat., alt. 5,500 ft., Dec. 1889, Heyde & Lux, no., 4,465." — Lecto-holotypus, Gomez in Donnell Smith 999, US!
An untidy shrub or treelet of irregular growth and rather squalid mien, the small ochroleucous flowers early turning brown or black, the filament-tassel and anthers also blackish. Herbarium specimens of var. gigantea, provided the origin is known, are readily distinguished from other daleas with yellow, nigrescent petals by the combination of long, narrow spikes and persistent interfloral bracts. Locality data are virtually essential for secure separation of some flowering specimens of var. gigantea and small-flowered, pubescent phases of var. lutea. The latter has petals often of a brighter yellow and pods at once more densely pubescent and more sharply triangular in profile view, but the latter are lacking, of course, in young material, and color is not really reliable. In the field var. gigantea is recognized as different chiefly because of its great stature, but branchlets separated from the trunk simulate and could pass for whole stems of var. lutea. While the calyx-tube of var. lutea is only sometimes glabrous, this is the rule in var. gigantea.
A field note accompanying the collection cited above from Jalapa, Guatemala, describes the "upper flowers pale lilac, older ones turning dark purple," but the petals when dried are not different from those of other var. gigantea. The point requires confirmation, especially for the bearing it may have on the status of D. botterii, which could be interpreted as a purple-flowered D. lutea var. lutea.
The essential similarity between the suffruticose northern and subarborescent southern phases of D. lutea has repercussions in the story of D. cinerea, listed above in synonymy of var. gigantea. The epithet was first applied by Moricand to specimens collected at San Carlos, Tamaulipas, by Berlandier (K, NY ex herb. Meissn., this a gift from Moricand) which represent a small-flowered variant of var. lutea. Hemsley (1880, p. 238) listed the Kew duplicate under the nomen nudum D. cinerea Moric. and associated with it Ghiesbreght 581 from Chiapas, a specimen of var. gigantea. When Micheli came to describe D. cinerea formally, the element of var. lutea dropped out of sight, and Moricand's epithet was transferred to what is here called var. gigantea. Rydberg (1920, p. 112) wrongly referred D. cinerea (in part) to synonymy of his own Parosela wardii and failed to mention the excluded element under P. gigantea. The epithet obviously belongs to one of these, and antedates both. If var. gigantea as described herein should ever be separated from var. lutea at the level of species, it must inherit the name D. cinerea Moric. ex Micheli.