Dalea purpureaVent.

purple prairie clover

WFO wfo-0000169115 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Dalea purpurea, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. a Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 204526803
Dalea purpurea, photographed by John Kees
fig. b John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202609076
Dalea purpurea, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. c Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159087021
Dalea purpurea, photographed by Samuel A Schmid, PhD, PWS
fig. d Samuel A Schmid, PhD, PWS, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201971750
Dalea purpurea, photographed by Alan Jeon
fig. e Alan Jeon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201581709
Dalea purpurea, photographed by dghjertaas
fig. f dghjertaas, CC0 1.0 / obs. 174458116
Dalea purpurea, photographed by Mike B
fig. g Mike B, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 149232209
Dalea purpurea, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. h Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157707877

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,455 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 1,455 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 24 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Dalea arenicola (Wemple) B.L.Turner
  • Dalea purpurea f. albiflora (W.H.Horr & McGregor) McGregor
  • Dalea purpurea f. arenaria (F.C.Gates) McGregor
  • Dalea violacea Michx. ex Willd.
  • Kuhnistera purpurea (Vent.) MacMill.
  • Kuhnistera violacea (Michx.) Aiton ex Steud.
  • Kuhnistera violacea Kuntze
  • Petalostemon arenicola Wemple
  • Petalostemon arenicolum Wemple
  • Petalostemon mollis Rydb.
  • Petalostemon pubescens A.Nelson
  • Petalostemon purpureum f. arenarium F.C.Gates
  • Petalostemon purpureus (Vent.) Rydb.
  • Petalostemon purpureus f. albiflorus W.H.Horr & McGregor
  • Petalostemon purpureus var. mollis (Rydb.) A.Nelson
  • Petalostemon purpureus var. pubescens (A.Nelson) H.D.Harr.
  • Petalostemon purpureus var. purpureus
  • Petalostemon standleyanus Rydb.
  • Petalostemon violaceum Michx.
  • Petalostemon violaceus Michx.
  • Psoralea purpurea (Vent.) MacMillan
  • Psoralea purpurea (Vent.) MacMill.
  • Psoralea purpurea (Vent.) Poir.
  • Psoralea violacea DC.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.