Single Record

PhotoRecords: YES Mary E. McDonald: Conejos Co, Forest Ser;vice Road 101 31 May 2014

Comments: For Townsendia grandiflora there are only three vouchers, so determined, from the Watershed: Spring Creek Pass in Hinsdale Co (1965); banks of the Rio Grande within the town of Alamosa (1968); and south La Veta Pass in Costilla Co (1976). Ackerfield (2015, 2022) does not accept any of these, and BONAP (2022) only the La Veta pass record. The first two are certainly not T. grandiflora. The photorecord from FSR 101 in Conejos Co (2014) needs verification (examination of the disk pappus). But it should be pointed out that the flower has been recorded from Rio Arriba and Taos counties in New Mexico, within the Rio Grande drainage and within forty miles of the Conejos Co location. If the photorecord determination is correct, it would add Conejos to counties indicated in Ackerfield (2022) and BONAP (20220. The species is largely a Wyoming and Colorado Front Range plant (also found in western North and South Dakota), but it extends into the Rio Grande drainage of New Mexico, present from Taos, Rio Arriba, and Colfax counties down to Socorro Co. It may hybridize with Townsendia eximia, making Watershed determinations more difficult.