Plant Database

From the Image Gallery

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Subshrub , Shrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Leaf: "The leaves dimorphic, the primary ones longer and more complex than those of leafy axillary spurs developing late in season, the leaflets green, gray, or silvery, always punctate beneath, sometimes densely minutely gland-sprinkled above; leaf-spurs 0.5-1.7 (2) mm long; stipules commonly livid or castaneous, narrowly lance-caudate to subulate, linear-caudate, or subsetiform, when long becoming dry and fragile in age, 1-6 mm long; intrapetlolular glands 0, 1, or 2; post-petiolular glands always prominent, black or orange, conic or prickleshaped; leaves subsessile or short-petioled, the primary (drought-deciduous) cauline ones 1-4 cm long, with variably margined, ventrally grooved or ventrally carinate, sparsely punctate rachis and (3) 4-17 (18) pairs of oblanceolate, oblong-elliptic, obovate, obovate-cuneate, or linear-oblong, subacute to emarginate but nearly always bluntly gland-mucronate, flat or shallowly cymbiform, rarely folded, submembranous to subcarnosulous leaflets 1-7.5 (9) mm long, the leaves of axillary spurs or those subtending the spikes shorter and simpler." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles mostly terminal to branchlets, the first of each main stem-axis often leaf-opposed and up to 7 (10) cm long but mostly less, the rest shorter or obsolete; spikes often racemiform, moderately dense, the larger earlier ones commonly oblong-cylindroid, the later ones ovoid to capitate or subglobose, the densely pilosulous axis becoming 0.5-11 cm long; bracts deciduous, lance-acuminate to narrowly lance- or linear-caudate, (2.5) 3-7.5 mm long, dorsally brown or castaneous, gross-glandular, and more or less densely pilose, the tips sometimes glabrate, the margins plumose-cihate, glabrous within; pedicels 0-1 mm long; calyx densely pilose with silky, at first ascending finally spreading spiral hairs up to (0.6) 0.8-1.4 mm long, the tube (2.1) 2.4-3.5 mm long, more or less oblique at orifice, the dorsal sinus sometimes shallowly recessed behind banner, the commonly golden-brown or castaneous ribs beconung thick and prominent, the intervals charged with one row of 3-6 small and pale or larger and orange or black glands, the teeth broadly to narrowly triangular at base and drawn out into laterally spurred, gland-tipped aristiform tips, the dorsal one usually longer than the rest, (2.3) 2.6-5 mm long, with very rare exceptions as long or (most often) decisively longer than tube; petals bicolored, the banner cream-colored or pale yellow, early rubescent, nearly always gland-sprinkled near and above the greenish eye-spot, like the keel and often the wings also tipped with a large elliptic blister-gland, the epistemonous ones pale lavender to bright rosy-purple, dull purplish-violet, exceptionally almost white, perched much below middle of androecium (mostly not over 3 mm distant from hypanthium); banner (4.8) 5-8.2 mm long, the claw (2.2) 2.5-4.1 mm, the deltate-cordate, more or less hooded blade (2.4) 2.8-4.6 mm long, 3-5.2 mm wide; wings (4.8) 5-9.2 mm long, the claw (1.3) 1.5-3.2 mm, the oblong or elliptic blade (3.7) 4-6.5 mm long, 1.7-3.3 mm wide; keel (6.4) 6.8-11.5 mm long, the claws (2.1) 2.5-4 (4.8) mm, the broadly oval-obovate blades (4) 4.4-7 (7.5) mm long, 2.7-4.2 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, 7-10.5 (12) mm long, the longest free for 1.8-3.2 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the anthers 0.5-0.85 mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod (poorly known) obtusely deltate in protile, about 2.4-2.9 mm long, the slightly convex prow prominent but filiform, the valves hyaline in lower 1/3, thence thinly papery, charged with a few castaneous or blackish glands, pilosulous distally; seed (1.4) 1.6-2 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Pink , Yellow , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Jan , Feb , Sep , Oct , Nov , Dec
Bloom Notes: "Petals bicolored, the banner cream-colored or pale yellow, early rubescent, nearly always gland-sprinkled near and above the greenish eye-spot, like the keel and often the wings also tipped with a large elliptic blister-gland, the epistemonous ones pale lavender to bright rosy-purple, dull purplish-violet, exceptionally almost white." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: AZ , NM
Native Distribution: Collective range: a) northern Sierra Madre Occidental, from Sinaloa into southeastern Arizona and adjacent New Mexico, and b) Sierra Madre del Sur from western Jalisco to southern Michoacan, south and central Oaxaca; Chiapas and highland Guatemala." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Open slopes and glades in sunny oak-pine woodland, persisting after forest clearing and colonial on eroding banks and badlands, 1700-2230 m (5700-7425 ft)." (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 versicolor in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Dalea versicolor in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Dalea versicolor