Single Record

Species: Mertensia bakeri [Mertensia amoena] [Mertensia lanceolata var. nivalis]

PhotoRecords: Yes: Patrick Alexander: Conejos Co, South Elk Creek, 1 July 2018

Comments: in 2009, Mare Nazaire, Mertensia specialist, collected and identified a specimen of Mertensia bakeri from the Continental Divide in Hinsdale Co, east of Silerton, near the ghost town of Carson. This is the surest evidence that the species occurs in the Watershed. In 2003 M. bakeri, so identified, was earlier collected near the summit of Fels peak in Conejos Co. There have been several plants identified as M. bakeri (1946, 1981) southwest of Creede (e.g., along the Rio Grande by Cottonwood Grove), at an elevation that seems too low for the species. But Patrick Alexander photographed a small colony above the headwaters of Manga Creek (Conejos Co, 2018) in enough detail to determine the species without a doubt. Allred et al. (2020) show the species following the Rio Grande Watershed only into Taos Co, New Mexico (in the alpine and subalpine). Note that the presence of Watershed M. bakeri in herbaria may be larger than currently catalogued because most specimens were determined before Nazaire and Hufford's 2014 revision of Mertensia.