Duration: Annual
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Annual herbs, 10-30 cm tall, from a slender taproot; stems slender, ascending and much branched, glabrous and sparingly gland dotted.
Leaves: Alternate and pinnately compund, 1-3 cm long, with 5-11 leaflets per leaf; leaflets 5-15 mm long, linear to oblong with a tapering base, gland dotted; stipules minute.
Flowers: Yellow and fading to purplish, in rounded clusters at branch tips; flowers about 5 mm long, with pea-flower morphology (papilionaceous), with a wide upper petal called the banner, two smaller lateral petals called the wings, and a boat-shaped lower petal called the keel which contains the style and stamens. Petals yellow when fresh and fading to blue-purple as they dry; sepals 5, abundantly silky-hirsute, united at the base into a tube 2 mm long, this topped with 5 awn-like teeth which are longer than the tube.
Fruits: Pod silky-villous, small and contained within the persistent hairy calyx; containing 1 or 2 seeds.
Ecology: Found in Chihuahuan scrub, grasslands, pinyon juniper and oak woodlands, and in riparian floodplains and forests; on hilltops, mesas, slopes, terraces, flats and in washes in various soil types, from 4,000 -6000 ft (1219-1828 m); flowers August - Septembe
Distribution: AZ, c and s NM, sw TX; south to n and c MEX.
Notes: Distinguished as a relatively slender, delicate annual with a strong scent and glands on the leaves; the stems are hairless, 10-30 cm long, ascending, and when long, tend to be weak and lay on the ground; the leaves are not hairy, often dark green and have no more than 5 pairs of leaflets per leaf; stems holding up the inflorescence (peduncles) are 1 -3 cm; inflorescences are round or slightly elongated with hairy bracts below the flowers; flowers are sessile and pea-like with copiously hairy sepals and yellow petals that turn red to blue after fertilization.
Ethnobotany: Unknown
Etymology: Dalea is named for Samuel Dale (1659-1739) an English physician and botanist; brachystachys is from the Greek brachys, short, and stachys, spike, refering to the compact, rounded clusters of flowers.
Synonyms: Dalea lemmonii, Parosela brachystachya, Parosela lemmonii, Dalea brachystachys
Editor: FSCoburn 2014, AHazelton 2017
