Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Annual
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "(1.5) 2.5-10, rarely 8-15 dm tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leaf-spurs 0.4-1.6 mm long; stipules subulate, 1-3 mm long, browrush or livid becoming dry and fragile; intrapetiolular glands usually spiculiform; post-petiolular glands hemispherical or mammiform, prominent, pale yellow or orange; leaves 2-9.5 cm long, shortly petioled or subsessile, the rachis narrowly green-margined, sulcate ventrally, the main cauline ones with (8) 10-17 (24), the rameal ones (rarely all of some dwarf individual plants) often only 4-10 pairs of oblanceolate, oblong-oblanceolate, or obovate, emarginate or retuse, exceptionally obtuse leaflets (2) 3-12 mm long, these flat and relatively thin-textured in more mesic habitats, loosely folded, thicker, often red-margined in more xeric ones." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Spikes terminal to the main axis and all branches, the latter often over-topping the former, pedunculate, the peduncles (1.5) 3-12 (15) cm long, the spike itself moderately dense, narrowly ovoid becoming cylindroid, without petals or androecia 8-12 (15) mm diam, the pilosulous axis finally (0.8) 1.5-7 (10) cm long; bracts all deciduous or the lowest ones subpersistent, ovate to lance-acuminate or abruptly caudate, 2.5-7 mm long, the lowest glabrous or subglabrous and glandular dorsally, the interfloral ones more of less pilosulous and ciliolate, the body and tail varying in color from pale green to greenish- or blackish-purple; calyx 3-5.2 (6.5) mm long, thinly to densely pilose-pilosulous from base upward with fine, ascending hairs, the tube (1.7) 2-2.5 (2.8) mm long, recessed behind the banner, the ribs filiform, brown or livid-nigrescent, the intervals membranous, flat or nearly so, charged with 2 irregular rows of small orange blister-glands (sometimes confluent into 1 row of more or less large elliptic ones), the broadly ovate-triangular and apiculate to lance-acuminate, often but not always gland-spurred teeth 1-2.8 (4) mm long; petals most commonly milky-white to bright bluish-purple or nearly blue, in some races white, all eglandular or the banner rarely gland-tipped, the epistemonous ones perched 1.2-2.8 mm below separation of the short filament-tassel, readily deciduous on expansion; banner (3.4) 4.4-6 mm long, the claw 1.7-3 mm, the ovate and basally angled to oblong-elliptic, erect blade (1.7) 2-3.7 mm long, 1.2-2.4 mm wide; wings (1.6) 1.9-3 mm long, the claw 0.3-0.9 mm, the oblanceolate or oblong-elliptic blade not or obscurely auricled at base, (1.3) 1.6-2.4 mm long, (0.4) 0.5-0.9 mm wide; keel 2.1-3.1 (3.5) mm long, the claws 0.5-1.1 mm, the blades like those of the wings but sometimes broader and more oblique, 0.7-1 mm wide; androecium 9-10-merous, 5-6.8 mm long, the filaments free for 0.6-1 mm, distally whitish or blue-purple, the connective gland-tipped, the pallid or dark blue anthers (0.2) 0.25-0.35 (0.4) mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod obliquely obovate in profile, 2.4-3 mm long, the style-base lateral, the filiform, often livid or brownish prow strongly convex-arcuate, the valves hyaline in the lower 3/4, thinly papery, pilosulous, and sometimes finely gland-sprinkled around the distal margin, when fully ripe dehiscent through the ventral and distally through the dorsal suture; seed 1.7-2.4 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Blue , Purple
Bloom Time: Feb , Mar , Apr , May , Aug , Sep , Oct , Nov , Dec
Bloom Notes: "Petals most commonly milky-white to bright bluish-purple or nearly blue, in some races white." (bibref: 1812). "Flowering in Northern Hemisphere August to December, in Southern Hemisphere February to May." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: AL , AZ , CO , IA , IL , IN , KS , MA , MI , MN , MO , ND , NE , NM , OH , PA , SD , TN , TX , VA , WI
Native Distribution: "Locally plentiful over the greater part of interior Mexico (exclusive of Yucatan perunsula) and upland Guatemala; Costa Rica (to be expected in Honduras and Nicaragua); North, east of the Continental Divide, through New Mexico and Trans-Pecos Texas to south-central and southeastern. North Dakota, eastward (in scattered stations, mostly riparian) to Minnesota, west-central Indiana, the Mississippi valley in southeastern Missouri, and central Texas (Brown County), extending from southern New Mexico west of the Divide into the Gila basin in central and southeastern Arizona and adjoining Sonora; also disjunctly, along roads, in fields, and in waste places about villages and cities of the arid central Andean plateau, at ± 2250-2850 m , in southeastern Chile (Apurimac and Puno), through Bolivia from Lago Titicaca southeastward into northwestern Argentina (Jujuy, Salta, and Tucuman)." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Disturbed soils along highways, at edge of fields, on stream-banks and lake-shores, northward (formerly, now much depleted) on virgin prairie, southward in savanna, arid grassland, thorn-scrub, and open oak- and pineforest, reaching 2400 m in Durango but mostly lower." (bibref: 1812).

National Wetland Indicator Status

Region:	AGCP	AK	AW	CB	EMP	GP	HI	MW	NCNE	WMVE
Status:	UPL		UPL		UPL	UPL		FACU	UPL	UPL

This information is derived from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Wetland Plant List, Version 3.1 (Lichvar, R.W. 2013. The National Wetland Plant List: 2013 wetland ratings. Phytoneuron 2013-49: 1-241). Click here for map of regions.

Bibliography

Bibref 1812 - Daleae imagines : an illustrated revision of Errazurizia Philippi, Psorothamnus Rydberg, Marina Leibmann, and Dalea Lucanus emend. Barneby, including all species of Leguminosae tribe Amorpheae Borissova ever referred to Dalea (1977) Barneby, Rupert C.

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Additional resources

USDA: Find Dalea leporina in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Dalea leporina in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Dalea leporina