Single Record

Species: Phemeranthus confertiflorus [Phemeranthus parviflorus] [Talinum confertiflorum] [Talinum parviflorum] etc.

PhotoRecords: YES Katherine Zybko: Saguache Co, Great Sand Dunes NPP, Deadman's Creek, 31 July 2021

Comments: Phemeranthus parviflorus has not often been collected from the Watershed, only around a dozen times. It seems to prefer lightly forested dry slopes, for instance near Terrace Reservoir in Conejos Co, foothills a few miles south of Del Norte in Rio Grande Co, beside a subdivision lane up Alder Creek a little north of South Fork in Rio Grande Co, or the South Sawatch range NW of Saguache in Saguache Co. Typically it grows in isolation in dry rocky terrain; one occurrence was in “sandy cracks in granite”; another was sandy substrate near Deadman's Creek in the northern part of the Great Sand Dunes (iNaturalist #89830610, 31 July 2021). The latest record is from a little north of Dog Mountain, south of Del Norte, Rio Grande Co, 31 Aug 2022 (iNaturalist #133129646). The species follows the Rio Grande drainage in New Mexico to the Mexican border and on down into Big Bend country of Texas. Note that P. confertiflorus was once included in P. parviflorus, but the concurrent opinion is that the two are distinct species, with no overlap in Colorado. The common name "flame thrower," by the way, is a false etymology—the genus epithet derives from the Latin for "ephemeral," referring to very short period that the inflorescence is open, usually for one day and less than two hours. And "conferti" is from the Latin word for "crowded."