Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Annual
Habit: Herb , Subshrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "3-10 cm tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leaf-spurs 0.5-1.5 mm long; stipules subulate, lanceolate, or lancecaudate, (0.6) 1-2.5 mm long, thinly herbaceous becoming stramineous, pubescent dorsally and charged with one or more large glands; intrapetlolular glands 0; postpetlolar glands large, orange or livid, prominent, and often more or less scattered and not directly opposed to the pedolule; leaves (0.5) 1-3.5 cm long, slenderly petioled, with (3) 4-5 (7) pairs of obovate, obcordate, cuneate-obcordate, suborbicular, or oblongobovate, deeply notched to subemarginate, loosely folded leaflets (2) 3-8 cm long, their margins plane, neither toothed nor undulate." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles mostly leaf-opposed, in some dwarf plants terminal and solitary, 0.2-2.5 (4.5) cm long; racemes densely manyflowered, ovate in outline early becoming oblong or narrowly cylindric, 8-14 mm diameter, the flowers spreading in early anthesis, then declined and loosely retrorse-imbricate in fruit, the pilosulous axis (0.5) 1-3.5 cm long; bracts lance- or elliptic-acuminate or -caudate, (3) 4.5-8 mm long, thinly herbaceous, green or purplish, glandular and pilose dorsally, glabrous within, gland-tipped; pedicels 0.3-0.6 mm long, the black or livid, prickle-shaped glands at base and toward apex (0.3) 0.4-1 mm long; calyx 3.3-6.6 mm long, silky-barbate with ascending, straight, spiral hairs up to 1-1.8 mm long, the tube 1.6-2.5 mm long, the orifice symmetric, the ribs subfiliform, commonly castaneous, the hyaline intervals charged with one row of (1) 2-6 small orange glands, the teeth deltate- or triangular-aristate, of about equal length, (2.5) 2.7-4 mm long, nearly always gland-spurred; petals whitish, but the keel-tip and sometimes the blade of the banner tinged with lilac or dull crimson, the banner gland-sprinkled in the hyaline eye, the wing- and keel-blades charged with a few glands at base, the wings gland-tipped, the inner petals raised about 0.9-1.4 mm above the hypanthium rim; banner 3-4.2 mm long, the claw 1.2-2.1 mm, the deltate-, ovate- or suborbicular-cordate, subacute to emarginate blade (1.5) 1.7-2.9 mm long, 2.2-3.2 mm wide; wings 2.9-4.3 mm long, the claw 0.9-1.4 mm, the ovate-oblong blade obliquely notched at apex, 2.1-3 mm long, 1.1-1.4 mm wide; keel 3.4-4.5 mm long, the claws 1-1.6 mm long, the half-obovate blades 2.3-3.4 mm long, 1.4-2 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 3.5-5.7 mm long, the longest filament free for 1.2-2 mm, the gland-tipped anthers 0.4-0.6 mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod obliquely obovoid, 2.2-2.7 mm long, the style terminal but excentric, the submembranous valves transparent in the lower 2/3, distally opaque, minutely gland-sprinkled and pilosulous, the keels filiform; seed pale-brown, lustrous, about 1.8-2.2 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Red , Purple
Bloom Time: Jan , Feb , Mar , Apr , May
Bloom Notes: "Petals whitish, but the keel-tip and sometimes the blade of the banner tinged with lilac or dull crimson." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CA
Native Distribution: "Widespread and common over the floor of the Sonoran Desert from southeastern Mohave Desert in San Bernardino County and Coachella Valley, Riverside County, California, to the valley of the Colorado and lower Gila rivers in southwestern Arizona, southward in Sonora to the latitude of Guaymas, and through the islands of the Gulf of California and the deserts of Baja California to the Llanos de Magdalena and Bahia de La Paz, lat. 24° 12' N., reaching the Pacific coast at Isla Cedros and at Isla Santa Margarita on Bahia Magdalena." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Sandy and gravelly washes, bajadas, sometimes on dunes, mostly below 700 m (2300 ft), around Salton Sea descending to -5 0 m , reportedly reaching 1200 m in Sierra Borja in Baja California." (bibref: 1812).

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