Parry’s False Prairie Clover

The Parry Dalea, known as Parry’s False Prairie-clover is a species of flowering plant in the legume family with delicate purple and whitish pea-flowers arranged into delicate spikes known by scientific name Marina parryi or alternately Dalea parryi. Parry’s false prairie-clover is native to the deserts of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
Marina parryi is a relatively inconspicuous plant, with slender stems and well separated leaves, though the stems often overlap to create a clump.
A perennial herb, it produces stiff, branching stems 8 to 32 inches centimeters long. It is coated with reddish glands and rough hairs. The leaves are compound, made up of several pairs of small oval leaflets no more than 6 millimeters long. The grayish-green and pinnately compound leaves are composed of one small, oval, rounded, or egg-shaped terminal leaflet and 5 to 12 pairs of opposite side leaflets, all ovate to nearly round, flat, less than a quarter of an inch in length, and also gland-dotted. Leaflet margins may be reddish.
The inflorescence is a narrow, elongated cluster extending over the uppermost 1 to 4 inches of the stem; flowers at the base of the cluster bloom earliest. The flower’s raceme is of deep blue and white bicolored flowers each under a centimeter long. The calyx lobes are shorter than the calyx tube. The corolla is around a quarter of an inch long, and all petals are purple towards the outer edges and white at the center. The largest petals are the keel. The main flowering of early spring is often followed by a second bloom in the fall.
Because it is so small and slender it usually requires careful searching, best done in mid to late spring.

From: Wikipedia, fireflyforest.com, /fieldguide and www.americansouthwest.net

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