Reprinted with permission from the New 



Britton and Brown Illustrated Flora of the 



Northeastern United States and Adjacent 



Canada, Vol. 2. page 411, Copyright 1952, 



The New York Botanical Garden. 



DALEA VILLOSA 

 SILKY PRAIRIE CLOVER 



Silky Prairie Clover is a perennial herb with ascending or lax, branched stems that are 20-35 cm high , and which arise 

 from red-orange roots and a rootcrown. The alternate, pinnately compound leaves are 2-4 cm long and have 11-21 

 linear leaflets The foliage has numerous sunken glands and is densely long and hairy. The pmk to rose-purple flowers 

 are densely crowded in cylindrical spikes that are 3-12 cm long, at the ends of stems and branches. Each flower is 4-6 

 mm long and has 4 separate petals, a densely spreading, hairy, 5-lobed, cup-shaped calyx, and 5 stamens that are usually 

 longer than the petals. The narrowly egg-shaped pods are 2-3 mm long and densely long and hairy. 



Flowering in late July-August; fruiting in late August. 



Other DALEA in Montana usually have 1 1 or more leaflets, and are not as conspicuously hairy. The compination of the 

 long, hairy calyx and the 5 stamens further separate this species from other DALEA and from species of PSORALEA 

 and AMORPHA. 



