Host an Event Volunteer Join Tickets

Support the plant database you love!

Share

Plant Database

Search for native plants by scientific name, common name or family. If you are not sure what you are looking for, try the Combination Search or our Recommended Species lists.

Enter a Plant Name:
Or you can choose a plant family:

Dalea ornata

Dalea ornata (Douglas ex Hook.) Eaton & J. Wright

Blue Mountain Prairie Clover

Fabaceae (Pea family)

Synonym(s): Petalostemon ornatus

USDA Symbol: DAOR2

USDA Native Status: L48 (N)

"Sparsely leafy perennial herb from a tough brown root and short caudex, (2) 2.5-5 dm tall, glabrous to the inflorescence, the several stout, erect or decumbent-incurved, pale green or stramineous, prominently ribbed, microtuberculate stems either simple except for axillary spurs or paniculately branched from (near) above middle, the foliage bicolored, the thick-textured leaflets yellowish (when dry sometimes verdigris) green above, pallid-glaucescent and livid-punctate beneath." (bibref: 1812).

A sturdy, rather coarsely leafy herb with glaucescent foliage of thick texture and handsome, pink-tasselled knobs of flower, D. ornata is the only member of the genus native in the Columbia-Snake River basin, to which it would be endemic except for outliers in the lake region of transmontane Oregon and in a small disjunct area in west-central Nevada. Unlike the calciphile D. searlsiae, which replaces it southward from northeast and central Nevada, D. ornata is characteristic of soft clay and sandy soils derived from weathering of basalt and volcanic ash." (bibref: 1812).

 

From the Image Gallery

No images of this plant

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "(2) 2.5-5 dm tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leafspurs almost 0 to 1 mm long; stipules subulate, 0.5-2.5 mm long, early papery and fragile, greenish-stramineous externally, livid-glandular within; intrapetlolular glands minute; post-petiolular glands prominent, obtuse; leaves petioled, the primary cauline ones 2.5-5.5 (6.5) cm long, with narrowly thick-margined rachis and 5-7 (9) broadly oblanceolate or elliptic-oblanceolate to broadly obovate, obtuse, sometimes gland-mucronate, or emarginate, flat or loosely folded leaflets up to 7-22 mm long, the stalked terminal leaflet always largest, the leaves of axillary spurs similar but smaller." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles 1-11 cm long; spikes very dense, ovoid becoming oblong-cylindroid, or the smaller lateral ones subglobose, without petals 13-16 mm diam, the calyces (pressed) appearing 5-8-ranked on each side, the densely pilose to glabrescent or truly glabrous axis (1) 1.5-5 (6) cm long; bracts organically deciduous at anthesis, but held fast between the calyces and falling with them, (3) 4-7.5 (8.5) mm long, subdimorphic, the lowest lanceolate, firm from base, the interfloral ones proximally narrowed downward, folded, and membranous, thence lanceolate, livid, dorsally pilose, tapering into a subulate or setaceous tip; calyx (3.6) 3.9-6.3 (6.7) mm long, pilose from base upward or sometimes only on the teeth with fine straight spreading-ascending, lustrous hairs up to (0.8) 1-2 (2.2) mm long, the broadly top-shaped tube (2.4) 2.7-3.6 (3.8) mm long, not or scarcely recessed behind banner, the ribs filiform, not or scarcely prominent, the membranous pallid intervals charged with 2-9 small, transparent or yellow blister-glands, the teeth of about equal length (but either dorsal or ventral sometimes longest), up to (1) 1.2-2.9 mm long, not greatly dissimilar in shape, the 3 dorsal ones ovate, triangular, or lanceolate, the ventral pair deltate to ovate-lanceolate, their plane tips green or livid; petals rose-purple or pale lilac, exceptionally white, glandless; banner 7-9 mm long, the claw 3.9-5 mm, the ovate or ovate-oblong, emarginate blade broadly cuneate to truncate, rarely subcordate at base, 3.3-4.5 mm long, (2) 2.3-4 mm wide; epistemonous petals 4.5-6.6 mm long, oblong-oblanceolate, the claw 1.3-1.8 (2) mm, the blades (3.3) 3.5-5 mm long, 1.4-2 mm wide; androecium (7.3) 7.7-12 mm long, the column 2.6-5 mm, the pinkish free filaments up to (3.6) 4.7-7.6 mm, the anthers yellow 1-1.4 mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod 3-3.5 mm long, obliquely compressed-obovoid, the ventral suture slightly concave, the dorsal strongly convex, the style-base latero-terminal, the prow slenderly carinate, the valves glabrous and hyaline in lower 1/3-2/3, distally thin-papery, pilosulous, finely gland-sprinkled; seed 2-2.4 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul
Bloom Notes: "Petals pale lilac, exceptionally white." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: CA , ID , NV , OR , WA
Native Distribution: "Along the Snake River and immediate affluents in southwestern Idaho (Elmore and Owyhee County, downstream to Weiser) and adjoining Oregon, reappearing near the mouth of Clearwater River in extreme southeastern Washington, and around the Great Bend of Columbia River, northward in Washington to Moses Lake, southward and westward in Oregon along the Columbia itself and up its southern affluents to lower Deschutes River; disjunctly, at ± 1350 m around basin lakes of Lake County, Oregon; and at 1500-1830 m (5000-6100 ft) around the western margin of Lahontan Basin in Lyon, Storey, and extreme southern Washoe counties, west-central Nevada." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: Sandy and shaley barrens, rocky ridges, gullied bluffs and knolls, often among sagebrush, of local and discontinuous dispersal in the Snake-Columbia basin west of the Cascades, and northwestern Great Basin: at 100-1260 m ( ± 350-4200 ft)." (bibref: 1812).

Additional resources

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

Metadata

Record Modified: 2020-12-07
Research By: Joseph A. Marcus

Go back