Plant Database

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Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial
Habit: Herb , Subshrub
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate
Fruit Type: Legume
Size Notes: "Up to 1-2.5 m tall." (bibref: 1812).
Leaf: "Leaf-spurs 0.2-0.8 mm long; stipules membranous, ovate- or subulate-attenuate, 0.3-1.4 mm long, often fimbriolate at base; intra- and post-petiolular glands small but prominent, subulate or prickle-shaped; main cauline leaves (drought-deciduous, often absent from flowering specimens) 1.5-3.5 (4) cm long, with narrowly winged rachis (ventral face 0.25-0.35 mm wide) and 6-12 (17) pairs of oblong or oblong-oblanceolate, flat, dorsally carinate leaflets 3-6.5 (7.5) mm long, the leaves opposed to and between peduncles much smaller, 1-9 mm long, 1-7-foliolate, the leaflets mostly obovate to broadly oblanceolate and entire, 0.7-5 mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Flower: "Peduncles very slender or capillary, leaf-opposed and terminal to all ultimate branchlets, 0.5-3 (4) cm long; racemes very loosely or remotely 1-25-flowered, the lowest of each primary division of the panicle 5-25-flowered (some always over 5-flowered) the terminal ones mostly 1-6-flowered, the axis becoming (0) 1-45 mm long; bracts enclosing the very young buds, early thrown off, obovate-cuneate, submembranous, gland-denticulate at apex, up to 1 mm long; pedicels (0.6) 0.8-1.5 mm long, charged near apex with 2 gland-grains; calyx 2.5-3.6 mm long, prominently ribbed but not pleated, the tube (1.5) 1.8-2.2 mm long, its membranous intervals charged with 1 row of (2) 3-5, distinct or irregularly confluent, orange blister-glands, the teeth more or less unequal, the dorsal one longest, ovate-triangular, usually acute, 0.7-1.6 mm long, the ventral pair shortest, nearly half-circular, obtuse, 0.4-0.9 mm long, all imbricated at base, the margins pallidly membranous, erose or minutely fimbriolate, charged at apex and often laterally with 1-3 minute orange glands; petals bicolored, the blade of banner whitish beyond the purple-tipped lobes, the white area sometimes boldly striped, rubescent in age, the inner ones rose- or magenta-purple or deep maroon-violet, perched 1.4-3 mm above hypanthium rim, their blades sparsely gland-sprinkled; banner 2.5-3.5 mm long, the more or less laterally winged claw thickened upward, 0.8-2.1 mm, the blade abruptly recurved through nearly 90 degrees, ovate-deltate, emarginate, closed across the top of claw to form a recessed cornet, the apex sometimes gland-tipped; wings 3.5-4.7 mm long, the claw 0.2-0.4 mm , the obovate blade 3.5-4.6 mm long, 2.2-3 mm wide; keel 4.4-5.9 mm long, the claws 0.7-1.2 mm, the broadly obovate blades 4.2-5.3 mm long, 2.8-3.5 mm wide; androecium 10-merous, (5.5) 6-8 mm long, the longest filaments free for 1.5-2.1 mm, the connective gland-tipped, the pale bluish anthers 0.5-0.7 mm long." (bibref: 1812).
Fruit: "Pod plumply obovoid, 2.7-2.9 mm long, 2-2.5 mm diameter, little compressed, the short style-base becoming lateral or latero-subterminal, the ventral suture strongly keeled above the pore, the dorsal suture smoothly rounded and not carinate, the valves contracted proximally into a subhyaline, obconic base about 0.3 mm long, thence firm, closely investing the seed, green or purplish becoming brown, charged with many small, low-protuberant glands about 0.2 mm diam, these arranged in no obvious pattern; seed about 2.1-2.5 mm long." (bibref: 1812).

Bloom Information

Bloom Color: White , Red , Pink , Purple , Violet
Bloom Time: Jan , Feb , Sep , Oct , Nov , Dec
Bloom Notes: "Petals more or less bicolored, the blade of banner whitish beyond the purple-tipped lobes, the white area sometimes boldly striped, rubescent in age, the inner ones rose- or magenta-purple or deep maroon-violet. Flowering September to February, rarely from mid-August north-ward." (bibref: 1812).

Distribution

USA: AZ
Native Distribution: "The species is widely dispersed along the Neovolcanic Belt in Mexico from southeastern Mexico to Nayarit, thence north along the Pacific slope to Sonora and just into extreme southem Arizona, and southeast, becoming rarer, along the Sierra Madre del Sur to Oaxaca and Guatemala." (bibref: 1812).
Native Habitat: "Brushy hillsides, hedgerows, and openings in oak woodlands, 200-1800 m (± 650-6000 feet)." (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 Marina diffusa in USDA Plants
FNA: Find Marina diffusa in the Flora of North America (if available)
Google: Search Google for Marina diffusa