Dalea melantha var. berlandieri

  • Title

    Dalea melantha var. berlandieri

  • Author(s)

    Rupert C. Barneby

  • Scientific Name

    Dalea melantha var. berlandieri (A.Gray) Barneby

  • Description

    131b.  Dalea melantha Schauer var. berlandieri (A. Gray) Barneby

    (Plate CXVII)

    Habitally like var. melantha, differing in the associated characters of few (2 or 3 pairs) leaflets of cuneate-obcordate outline and loose, open racemes of flowers.— Collections: 12 (i).

    Open rocky hillsides and rock-ledges in canyons, strongly calciphile, ± 1000-2000 m, local in s.-e. Coahuila (Sierras de Parras and Pata Galana), centr. Tamaulipas (in Sierra Madre and Sierra de Tamaulipas), and centr. San Luis Potosi. — Flowering primarily November to March, perhaps through the year. —Representative: Coahuila. Parras: Purpus 1069 (F, NY, UC); Ripley & Barneby 13,515 (CAS, NY, MEXU, MICH, US). Tamaulipas. Miquihuana: Stanford, Retherford & Northcraft 2380a (US). Jaumave: von Roszynski 315, 409 (F). San Carlos: typus. San Luis Potosi. Ciudad del Maiz: Purpus 4841 (F, UC). Soledad: Rzedowski 6287 (ENCB).

    Dalea melantha Schauer var. berlandieri (A. Gray) Barneby, stat. nov., based on D. berlandieri (Jean Louis Berlandier, d. 1851) A. Gray, Proc. Amer. Acad. 5: 177. 1861.— "In the mountains near San Carlos, Tamaulipas, Berlandier coll. 942, 2372." — Holotypus (Berlandier 942 = 2372!), collected in Nov, 1831, GH! — Parosela berlandierei (A. Gray) Rose, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 10: 106. 1906.

    Because of the more pronounced development of pedicels in the specimens available at the time, P. berlandieri was misinterpreted by Rydberg as related to D. filiciformis and referred to subgen. Trichopodium, far distant from its close relatives in subgen. Euparosela (cf. Rydberg, 1919, p. 62; 1920, p. 108). Its status as even varietally distinct from var. melantha is questionable, the differential characters being feeble in themselves and poorly correlated, and the separation of the ranges imperfect. As seen in Sierra de Parras, where the plants grew on ledges of cliffs in a box-canyon, the variety appeared very different from ordinary var. melantha in Hidalgo southward, remarkable for the few, cuneate-obocordate leaflets and loosely racemose flowers. It seems hardly possible to stretch the concept of var. melantha to embrace the extreme variation in these directions.