Herbs or shrubs, perennial [annual], unarmed. Stems erect or decumbent, glabrous or pubescent (trichomes stiff, short, not spirally twisted). Leaves alternate, usually odd-pinnate, rarely unifoliolate; stipules present, caducous or persistent, deltate, ovate, or subulate; petiolate; leaflets 1–25(–29)[–45], stipels absent, blades with pale sinuous lines and single gland between petiolules, margins entire or glandular-crenulate, surfaces lineolate, with pale, sinuous, ascending lines, usually glandular-punctate abaxially, usually pubescent, sometimes glabrous. Inflorescences (1–)5–75-flowered, terminal or leaf-opposed, racemes; bracts present, caducous [persistent]; bracteoles absent. Pedicels glandular basally, sometimes also apically. Flowers papilionaceous; calyx campanulate, lobes 5, ribs 10, not anastomosing distally into closed arches, intervals between ribs membranous, glandular; corolla white, lilac, blue, blue-violet, or purple, often bicolored; banner claw reflexed to 90°; wings and keel epistemonous, arising from apex of stamen tube or laterally from it; wings not adnate to keel; keel blades usually narrowly overlapping and adherent; stamens [5 or 9]10, monadelphous, ± equal; anthers dorsifixed; ovule 1. Fruits loments, mostly tan, stipitate, compressed [plump], obovoid, obliquely obovoid, or harp-shaped [obliquely obdeltoid], indehiscent, pericarp membranous or papery, glandular, glabrous or pilosulous. Seed 1, tan to purplish or greenish, somewhat compressed, reniform. x = 10.

Distribution

sw United States, Mexico, Central America (Guatemala).

Discussion

Species 38 (4 in the flora).

Marina is close to Dalea and is separated primarily on differences in the calyces, whose ribs do not form closed arches in Marina as they do in Dalea, and the leaves, whose leaflets have pale, sinuous lines in Marina but not in Dalea and whose axes bear single adaxial glands between the petiolules in Marina and usually two in Dalea. R. C. Barneby (1977b) placed the four species in the flora area into sect. Carroa (C. Presl) Barneby (M. diffusa) and sect. Marina (M. calycosa, M. orcuttii, and M. parryi).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Marina calycosa, Marina diffusa, Marina orcuttii, Marina parryi

Key

1	Shrubs (sometimes flowering precociously); calyces glabrous.	Marina diffusa
1	Herbs (becoming suffrutescent in M. parryi); calyces strigulose to hirsute, hirtellous, or hirsutulous.	> 2
2	Stems densely glandular-verruculose; racemes sparsely flowered distally; flowers not nodding, usually separated by distinct intervals.	Marina parryi
2	Stems eglandular or nearly so; racemes moderately densely flowered; flowers nodding.	> 3
3	Calyces 5.2–7 mm; keel petals 4.3–5.8 mm; leaflet blades not gland-dotted abaxially.	Marina calycosa
3	Calyces 4.2–5 mm; keel petals 3.6–4.1 mm; leaflet blades gland-dotted abaxially.	Marina orcuttii