Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb , Subshrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "(1.5) 2-5 (5.5) dm tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leaf-spurs 0-1 mm long; stipules narrowly linear-caudate or setiform, livid or castaneous, becoming dry and fragile; intrapetiolular glands minute; post-petiolular glands small but prominent, obtuse; leaves petioled, the primary cauline ones 2-4 cm long, with thick-margined rachis and 3-5 linear-oblanceolate, either emarginate, obtuse, or subacute and gland-mucronulate, usually involute leaflets up to 1-2.2 cm long, the short-stalked terminal one a little longer than the rest, the leaves of axillary spurs shorter, with mostly 3 leaflets of same type but smaller." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles 1.5-8 cm long; spikes dense in bud, loosening during and after anthesis, becoming oblong-cylindroid or (the lesser lateral ones) subglobose, never conelike, the flowers (pressed) appearing 3-4-ranked, the whole without petals 8-10 mm diam, the densely pilosulous, pitted axis (0.5) 1-7 (9) cm long; bracts deciduous by full (or certainly by late) anthesis, 2.5-4.5 (5.5) mm long, the body broadly flabellate-obovate to broadly oblanceolate, 1.2-2.4 mm wide, greenish-glaucescent, pilosulous and inconspicuously gland-dotted dorsally, glabrous within, contracted into a subulate or subulate-attenuate livid tail 1-2 (3) mm long; calyx (3.1) 3.4-4.5 mm long, densely pilose with spreading-ascending hairs up to (0.7) 0.9-1.5 mm long, the subsymmetrically obovoid tube not recessed behind banner, (1.6) 1.9-2.4 mm long, bluntly 10-angled, the ribs prominulous but very slender, the almost flat intervals densely castaneous- flecked but glandless, the teeth of subequal length but different shapes, the 3 dorsal ones lanceolate, 1.5-2.1 mm long, the ventral pair ovate-lanceolate to ovate, the blades plane, herbaceous or castaneous; petals rose-purple, eglandular; banner 5.5-6.5 mm long, the claw 3.2-4 mm, the broadly cordate, apically hooded, obtuse or emarginate blade 2.3-3.1 mm long, 2.6-3 mm wide; epistemonous petals 4-4.8 nun long, the claw 1-1.5 mm, the oblong or ovate-oblong, basally truncate to broadly cuneate blade 2.7-3.4 mm long, 1.2-1.5 mm wide; androecium 6-8.3 mm long, the column tipped, the anthers 0.9-1.5 mm long, yellow." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod 2.8-3.5 mm long, in profile obliquely half-obovate, the ventral suture concavely the dorsal convexly arched, the style- base excentrically terminal, the prow slender but prominulous, the valves hyaline and glabrous in lower 1/3, thence papery, pilosulous, commonly gland-sprinkled; seed about 2 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: Pink , Purple
Bloom Time: May , Jun , Jul , Aug
Bloom Notes: "Petals rose-purple." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: AZ , CO , KS , NM , OK , TX
Native Distribution: "Locally plentiful over the short-grass prairies and arid grasslands drained by the upper Canadian, Cimarron, and Pecos rivers in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, the northeastern quarter of New Mexico, and adjoining Colorado and Kansas, extending southward in Texas to the sources of the Brazos in Lubbock and Garza counties, on the Pecos southward to Fort Sumner, thence westward just to the edge of the Rio Grande Valley in Sandoval County, in Kansas northward interruptedly to the head of Smoky Hill River in Wallace County." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Stony hilltops, rocky bluffs, and gullied badlands, commonly associated with limestone caprock but sometimes on granites or sandstones, 810-1350 m (2700- 4500 ft) and perhaps slightly higher westward." (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 tenuifolia in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Dalea tenuifolia in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Dalea tenuifolia