Common Name: featherplume
Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Subshrub
General: Small, much-branched shrub, 25-60 cm tall; stems divaricately branched, zig-zagging from node to node, glabrous below the inflorescence.
Leaves: Alternate and pinnately compund, up to 1 cm long, with 7-11 tiny leaflets per leaf; leaflets 1-3 mm long and 1 mm wide, thick and often conduplicate (folded in half with the upper surface on the inside of the fold; surfaces glabrous and gland dotted.
Flowers: Purple, in clusters of 2-10 flowers at branch tips; flowers about 1.5 cm 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 rose-purple, sometimes with a yellow-tinged banner petal; sepals 5, long-villous, united at the base into a tube 3-4 mm long, this topped with 5 narrow teeth which are longer than the tube.
Fruits: Pods small, hairy, and gland-dotted, contained within the persistent hairy calyx; containing 1-2 seeds.
Ecology: Found on gravelly or rocky, dry slopes from 2,000-6,500 ft (610-1981 m); flowers April-October.
Distribution: AZ, NM, TX, s OK; south to n MEX.
Notes: Distinguished by being a small shrub to 0.75 m tall with thin, much-branching, woody zig-zag stems; the small, slightly resinous, fragrant, glabrous, pinnately-compound leaves; and the showy flowers with long-hairy sepals, yellow-tinged banner petals, and purple keel and wing petals.
Ethnobotany: Taken as an emetic, as a strengthener before a long run, and as a cathartic.
Etymology: Dalea is named for Samuel Dale (1659Ð1739) an English botanist; formosa means finely formed, handsome, or beautiful.
Editor: AHazelton 2017
