Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous annuals, diminutive or mat-forming, stems unarmed, herbage conspicuously glandular and pubescent.

Leaves: Alternate and pinnate with 7-15 leaflets, these round to obovate or oblong, 3-7 mm long, flat or folded, margins entire, with inconspicuous, thread-like or glandular stipules.

Flowers: Purple with banner, wing and keel petals, banner petals with an attachment point in the receptacle, other petals attached on the side or top of the filament column, the wing petals with a gland in the apical notch, corollas 3-7 mm long, calyx tubes 10-ribbed, 3-5 mm long, with needle-like lobes about as long as the tube from a triangular base, the surfaces shaggy-hairy, stamens 9-10, filaments fused, not exserted, ovules 2, inflorescences in ovoid or short-cylindric, dense spikes to 5 mm long and 8-15 mm wide, bracts to 1 mm wide.

Fruits: Legumes, indehiscent, included in or slightly exserted from the calyx. Seeds 1 per legume.

Ecology: Found in creosote-bush flats and washes, on roadsides, to 2,500 ft (762 m); flowering March-May.

Distribution: Arizona, California; Mexico.

Notes: This small dalea is distinguished by its needle-like, shaggy hairy calyx lobes and super fuzzy infloresences. Kearney and Peebles give the keys as the calyxes 3-5 mm long, usually surpassed by the corollas, and the wing petals with a gland in the apical notch. (Also the petals inserted on the stamen tube, the calyx lobes setaceous from a triangular base, stems conspicuously glandular and pubescent, the stamen tubes not exserted, the racemes to 5 mm long, and 7-15 obovate leaflets to 8 mm long, the flowers white and purple).

Ethnobotany: Specific uses for this species are unknown, but other species in the genus have uses; species used for food.

Etymology: Dalea is named after Samuel Dale (1659-1739), an English physician, botanist and botanical collector, and gardener who was the author of several botanical works and a treatise on medicinal plants, and mollis means smooth, or with soft velvety hair.

Synonyms: Dalea mollis subsp. pilosa, Parosela mollis, Parosela pilosa

Editor: LCrumbacher2012