Feather Dalea (Dalea formosa)

   
 

Feather Dalea (Dalea formosa), overview and flowers, Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. Photographs by Gertrud Konings.

• Common English Names: Feather Dalea, Feather Plume, Pea Bush, Plume Dalea
• Common Spanish Names: Yerba De Alonso García
• Scientific Name: Dalea formosa (DAY-lee-uh for-MOW-suh)
• Family: Fabaceae-Papilionoideae (Pea Family)
• Geographic Range: Central, Panhandle, and western Texas; Oklahoma Panhandle; southern Colorado; southern Utah; through New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila, Mexico.
• Plant Form: Semi-evergreen shrub, 3 x 3'.
• Remarks: Low mounding shrub with divergent branching woody stems, tiny light green compound leaflets and small, bright violet flowers with yellow throats in 1" clusters. From March to September, small pea-like flowers display prominently plumose calyces and produce seeds that also have plumed tails that give a distinctive fuzzy/feathery appearance intermittently from March through September.

Last Update: 26 Feb 2005