Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Silene acaulis
- Family
- Caryophyllaceae
- CommonName
- moss campion, moss catchfly
- Presence
- YES
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1945
- LatestDate
- 2019
- Ecosystem
- subalpine, tundra
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras, NCristos
- Counties
- Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache, Archuleta, San Juan
- Passes
- Grayback, Music, Stony, Wolf Creek
- WildlifePreserves
- Other Localities
- Comments
- Moss campion is one of the most commonly recorded alpine flowers of the Watershed, on both sides of the Valley. This dwarf cushion plant survives in open rocky tundra, dispersing its seeds by wind. The Watershed Cristos and San Juan mountains doubtless were part of the Southern Rockies refugium that protected Silene acaulis during the last period of glaciation (see Gussarova et al., 2015—although the Watershed mountains were not part of their sampling). There are scattered locations in all Western states, with the exception of California. The species follows the Rio Grande drainage only into Rio Arriba, Taos, and Santa Fe counties of New Mexico.
- Annotation