PLANT : Prostrate perennial herbs with glandless or nearly glandless foliage and racemes.
STEMS : gray-green, branched from the middle, sparsely canescent, to 30 cm long.
LEAVES : 1-3 cm long, shortly petiolate; leaflets obovate to oblong-obovate, 2-3 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, white pubescent.
INFLORESCENCE : a dense raceme 1.5-6.5 cm long.
FLOWERS : 7-10 mm long; calyx lobes narrowly triangular, 2.0-2.5 mm long, acute, longer than the tube, ribbed, with prominent veins, pilose; petals purple and white.
FRUIT : an obliquely obovoid pod, 3.0-3.5 mm long with two rows of glands on each side.
NOTES : Dry, open slopes and grasslands: Cochise, Graham, Pima, 2011 VASCULAR PLANTS OF ARIZONA 3 Pinal, Santa Cruz cos. (Fig. 1B); 1150-1500 m (4000-5000 feet); Apr-Sep; se AZ, NM; Son. Mex.
REFERENCES : Rhodes, Suzanne, June Beasley and Tina Ayers. 2011. Fabaceae. CANOTIA 7: 1-13.
Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Decumbent to ascending perennial herb with slender, strigose stems 10-30 cm long; stipules lance-acuminate, 2-4 mm long, sparsely strigose on outer surface.
Leaves: Each 1-3 cm long, petioles 4-7 mm long, leaflets 15-29, oblong to obovate, 2-5 mm long, rounded, obtuse or retuse at apex, glabrous on upper surface, strigose and sparsely and minutely glandular-punctate beneath.
Flowers: Peduncles 1-4 cm long, racemes dense, 1.5-4 cm long, bracts lanceolate-attenuate, 3.5-4.5 mm long, sparsely pubescent, caudcous; flowers 7-10 mm long, calyx tube turbinate, 2-2.5 mm long, strongly 10 ribbed, pilose, glandular between ribs; calyx lobes linear-lanceolate, 4-5 mm long, densely pilose without, glabrous within; corollas purple and white, reniform banner.
Fruits: Obovate pod 3-3.5 mm long and wide, sparsely pilosulous.
Ecology: Found on dry slopes and washes from 4,000-5,000 ft (1219-1524 m); flowers April-September.
Ethnobotany: Unknown
Etymology: Marina refers to marine, or of the sea, while calycosa means having a full calyx.
Synonyms: Dalea calycosa
Editor: SBuckley, 2010