Dalea multiflora (Nutt.) Shinn., round–headed prairie clover. Perennial herb, many–stemmed at base, principal branch from base with ascending lateral branches from successive nodes and new shoots with unexpanded axillary shoots, in range to 35 cm tall; shoots with only cauline leaves, gland–dotted, foliage somewhat fragrant when crushed, glabrous.
Stems somewhat angled, < 2 mm diameter, ridges striped crimson, warty with scattered raised glands.
Leaves helically alternate, in range odd–1–pinnately 3(5, rarely 7)–foliolate (3–foliolate pseudopalmate), petiolate with pulvinus, with stipules; stipules 2, attached to leaf base, linear to triangular, 0.3—0.9 mm long, red–purple with green base; petiole pulvinus cylindric, to 0.5 mm long, white and narrower than green petiole above, above pulvinus channeled, 2.5—6 mm long, conspicuously gland–dotted; rachis (if present) channeled and gland–dotted; leaflets if 3 at top of petiole, if 5 lower leaflets pairs and formed on upper side of rachis; petiolule pulvinus, 0.4—0.5 mm long, white; blades of leaflets narrowly oblong to linear widest just below tip, green to yellow–green, somewhat fleshy, folded upward from midrib, 1–veined, entire on margins, obtuse and ± prow–shaped at tip, lower surface conspicuously gland–dotted
Inflorescence headlike spike, terminal, when flowers open 10—12 mm diameter (excluding exserted styles), ± hemispheroid, 20+–flowered in 8 files, bracteate, glabrous; peduncle erect, slender, cylindric, in range to 25 mm long, warty with raised glands, with 2 or more bracts along axis appearing like raised gland + a slender, stipulelike tip < 1 mm long; rachis with ledge below each flower; bractlet subtending flower acuminate–ovate, < 2 mm long (midpoint of calyx), at least the lower ones with 2 stipules, thickened at base, below midpoint sometimes fringed, stipules persistent and conspicuously fringed, but blade deciduous.
Flower bisexual, bilateral, ca. 5 mm across; calyx 5–lobed, ± 3.5 mm long; tube funnel–shaped, ca. 2 × 1.8 mm, cream–colored, 10–ribbed, upper side somewhat flattened, having 10 glands in a ring at top of tube (2 mm from base), glands aging reddish, glabrous; lobes unequal, 2 deltate and 3 triangular extending from 5 prominent ribes, green with membranous, short–ciliate margins, midvein thickened, with purple–red tips; petals 5, banner free, wings and keel petal fused to stamens alternating with free filaments, clawed, white; banner claw 2—2.5 mm long and somewhat flattened, limb inversely heart–shaped, 2—2.2 × 3 mm; 2 wings and 2 keel petal limbs truncate–ovate with claw ca. 1.5 mm long, limb 2.2—2.5 × 1.7—1.9 mm; stamens 5, monadelphous (5 fused as a sheet), sheet at top having 5 exserted filaments alternating with 4 exserted petals (2 wings + 2 keel petals, sometimes interpreted as staminodes); filament sheet open with ovary bulging out on upper side, 2 mm long, white, 9–ribbed; free filaments exserted, spreading, 3.5—5 mm long, white; anthers dorsifixed, dithecal, 0.7 mm long, beige with conspicuous reddish connective, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen beige; pistil 1; ovary superior, subspheroid, 1 × 0.8 mm, glossy green, with diagonal lines of elongate glands on each valves, having short hairs along suture, 1–chambered with 2 ovules attached to upper side; style 5.5—6 mm long, green at base and white above; stigma terminal, minute, 0.1—0.15 mm across, rose.
Fruit pod (legume), indehiscent, 1–seeded, asymmetrically obovoid and ± D–shaped in side view, ca. 3 × 1.5 × 1.5 mm, red, plump with fleshy wall, exserted < 1 mm from calyx
Seed adherent to fruit wall, with white seed coat.
A. C. Gibson