Single Record

Species: Trollius laxus [Trollius americanus] [Trollius laxus subsp. albiflorus] [Trollius albiflorus]

PhotoRecords: YES Rich Haswell: Rio Grande Co, 3 miles S of Grayback Mt, wet meadow 14 July 2020

Comments: In the Watershed there are only two vouchers of Trollius laxus subsp. albiflorus: W of La Veta Pass between Hwy 160 and Sangre de Cristo Creek (1987); in the Alamosa River canyon (1983). Recent photorecords, however, indicate that the species may be more common in the Watershed: a little S of Grayback mountain in wet meadows beside the road to Summitville (2014); a little N of Grayback Mt beside a natural pond (2017, 2020); west of Jasper (2020, iNaturalist observation 13742558)—all in Rio Grande Co; three or four more observations in iNaturalist from Conejos Co. The flower is much more common on the western slope of Colorado. The Watershed occurrences mark the SW border of the USA distribution of this subspecies of Trollius laxus (it is not found farther down the Rio Grande drainage). The other subspecies, T. laxus subsp. laxus, is found, rarely, in New England. In several states, this eastern subspecies apparently has been extirpated. Note that the eastern and western subspecies are sometimes treated as separate species (T. laxus and T. albiflorus], but only minor morphological features—e.g., a slight difference in size of the seeds—support that claim.