Common Name: Santa Catalina prairie clover

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Small shrub, mostly erect with thin, gray branches, often abundantly pubescent.

Leaves: Pinnate with 5-7 leaflets, these covered with long, somewhat stiff hairs that are silky gray.

Flowers: Flowers crowded in a dense spike, the cream banners and purple keels protruding from the densely strigose cluster of calyx tubes, these 1-1.5 cm, giving the appearance of a furry ball when short or a spike when long, bracts linear-lanceolate, densely hairy on margins and backs.

Fruits: Small, pubescent to strigose, indehiscent pod.

Ecology: Found on gravelly or rocky hills and slopes from 2,500-5,000 ft (762-1524 m); flowers February-May.

Distribution: Ranges from southern Arizona south into Mexico to southern Sonora and east and south to San Luis Potosi.

Notes: Similar to D. formosa and D. versicolor var. sessilis, but differs in having 5-7 leaflets that are cuneate obovate and covered in short appressed hairs that are shiny and appearing silky.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher and Steve Buckley, 2011

Etymology: Dalea is named for Samuel Dale (1659-1739) an English botanist, pulchra refers to "pretty".