Dalea phleoides (Torr.& A.Gray ) Shinners

Petalostemon phleoides Torr. & A. Gray , Fl. N. Amer. 1(2):310. 1838; M.J. Young, Familiar Lessons Bot. 221. 1873 (“ aphleoides ”).

Dalea phleoides (Torr.& A.Gray) Shinners View in CoL , Field & Lab. 17:83.1949.

TYPE: U.S.A. “ Arkansas ” [Texas?]. Sine loc .,s.d., Dr.M.C. Leavenworth s.n. ( LECTOTYPE, designated here: NY [ NY00026681 as image!] ).

Given that Young (1873) borrowed extensively from Torrey and Gray (1838), it is difficult to interpret “ Petalostemon aphleoides” as anything more than the inadvertent miscopying of the specific epithet of P. phleoides and not as a new species as is done in Tropicos (2021). Watson (1878) very early adopted the former interpretation. Young’s (1873) description clearly is copied from Torrey and Gray (1838) although she altered in her flora the sequence of characters that they listed.

Young (1873) cites “ Drummond ” at the end of her description, which is unfortunate if not understandable as it is the sole collection attributed to Texas in Torrey and Gray (1838) who cited Drummond as the type of Petalostemon phleoides var. microphyllus Torr. & A. Gray. The type of P.phleoides is a Leavenworth collection from Arkansas, but because there are no modern collections from that state there is a suspicion ( Barneby 1977; Turner 2013) that the material may have been collected in eastern Texas, which was visited by Leavenworth in 1834 and 1837 ( McVaugh 1947). Despite citing the type of P. phleoides var. microphyllus with her treatment of “P. aphleoides” (i.e., P. phleoides var. phleoides ), the morphological characters provided by Young (1873) match those of the nominate variety and not those of the small-leaved taxon that Turner (2013) refers to Dalea drummondiana Shinners [≡ D. phleoides var. microphylla (Torr. & A. Gray) Barneby].