Dalea gattingeri

  • Title

    Dalea gattingeri

  • Author(s)

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea gattingeri (A.Heller) Barneby

  • Description

    50.  Dalea gattingeri (A. Heller) Barneby

    (Plate LX)

    Diffuse perennial herb from thick blackish root, 1.5-3.5 dm tall, appearing glabrous to the inflorescence but the leaf-rachis, the lower (rarely both) faces of leaflets, and stems distally (or some of these) thinly pilosulous with weak, spreading- ascending, ± sinuous hairs up to 0.3-0.5 mm long, the decumbent-incurved, striate, eglandular or remotely minutely microglandular stems either simple or branched distally, or branched throughout, either monocephalous or going out into a central and several smaller lateral spikes, the foliage green, the leaflets scarcely bicolored, punctate beneath; leaf-spurs 0.2-1 mm long; stipules linear-caudate becoming stiff and setiform, (1.5) 2-6 (7) mm long; intmpetiolular glands 2, minute; post-petiolular glands small, not or scarcely prominent; leaves shortly petioled, the primary cauline ones 2-3.5 cm long, with broadly margined rachis and 5-7 (9) linear, linear-oblanceolate, or -elliptic, obtuse (sometimes gland-mucronulate) flat and marginally inrolled or tightly involute leaflets up to 8-18 mm long, the terminal one subsessile or short- stalked, always the longest, the leaves of axillary spurs shorter, with 3-5 smaller, otherwise similar leaflets; peduncles 0.5-2.5 cm long; spikes moderately dense, the flowers (pressed) falling into ± 3-4 ranks, oblong to cylindric, (8) 9-10 mm diam, the densely pilosulous axis becoming 1.5-7.5 cm long; bracts deciduous by full anthesis but often held fast between the calyces and falling only with the pod, in outline lance-caudate, 3-5 (6) mm long, the lowest firm and persistent, the inner ones papery and pallid at base, distally subherbaceous, greenish or livid, dorsally pilosulous to apex and charged with a few small glands; calyx 4-5 mm long, densely pilosulous-tomentulose with sinuous hairs up to 0.25-0.4 mm long, the subsymmetric tube 2-2.5 (2.7) mm long, not recessed behind banner, indistinctly 10-ribbed, the intervals all densely castaneous-flecked, glandless, the teeth unequal, the 3 dorsal lanceolate, up to 1.9-2.8 mm long (0.6 mm longer to 0.6 mm shorter than tube), the ventral pair ovate, all with green or greenish-livid blades, sometimes minutely gland- spurred on margins; petals rose-purple, eglandular; banner 5.2-6.2 mm long, the claw 3.1-3.9 mm, the ovate blade 2.1-2.6 mm long, (1.6) 2-2.8 mm wide, either broadly cuneate or shallowly cordate at base, hooded at the entire or emarginate apex; epistemonous petals 3.5-4.5 mm long, the blades oblong or elliptic-oblanceolate, obtuse, 2.6-3.2 mm long, 0.9-1.3 mm wide, cuneately contracted at base into a claw 0.7 1.4 mm long; androecium 6.3-7.8 mm long, the column 2.4-3 mm, the filaments free for 3.8-5.4 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the orange anthers 0.9-1 mm long; pod semi-obovate in profile, 2.8-3.3 mm long, the ventral suture nearly straight, the prow slender, the style-base at upper corner, the valves in lower half papery (not hyaline), glabrous, distally firmer, densely pilosulous, microglandular; seed up to 2.2 mm long; 2n = 14 (Wemple, 1970, p. 12). - Collections: 19 (i).

    Thin stony soils of calcareous cedar-glades and barrens, locally abundant, centr. Tennessee (Nashville Basin to region of Chattanooga) s. into the n.-w. corner of Georgia and n.-w. Alabama (Franklin Co.); cf. Wemple, 1970, map 13. - Flowering May to August.— Representative: Tennessee: Demaree 45,747 (DAO, NY); Wemple 473, 474 (NY); Barneby 14,979 (CAS, GH, F, IA, NY, US); Krai 26,950 (OKLA). Georgia: B. L. Turner 4935 (TEX). Alabama: R. L. James s. n. in 1944 (NY).

    Dalea gattingeri (A. Heller) Barneby, comb. nov., based on Kuhnistera gattingeri (Augustin Gattinger, 1825-1903) A. Hell., Bull. Torrey Club 23: 121, PI. 262. 1896. - "...Dr. A. Gattinger...about Nashville and Lavergne, Tenn...specimens are in Curtiss' North American Plants, no. 565..." - Lectoholotypus (Wemple, 1970, p. 80): Curtiss 565* US! isotypi, K, NY (annotated by Heller), WIS! —Petalostemon gattingeri (A. Hell.) A. Hell., Bull. Torrey Club 26: 593. 1899.

    A handsome low prairie-clover, the numerous short stems decumbent and radiating from the heavy rootstock and bearing a chaplet of vivid purple tassels sparked by the orange anthers. The species seems closely related to D. tenuifolia which it resembles in its relatively loose flower-spikes, but distinguished by the basally glabrous stems, narrower bracts, and short-pilosulous calyx. The primary leaves of D. tenuifolia have only three or five leaflets; those of D. gattingeri five, seven and less often nine. The species seems to have been collected first in "Upper Alabama" in 1866 by T. Peters (NY).