Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Eriocoma lettermanii [Achnatherum lettermanii] [Stipa lettermanii]
- Family
- Poaceae
- CommonName
- Letterman's needlegrass
- Presence
- yes
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1899
- LatestDate
- 2025
- Ecosystem
- shrubland, foothill, montane, subalpine, urban
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras, NCristos
- Counties
- Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache, Archuleta, San Juan
- Passes
- Cumbres
- WildlifePreserves
- Other Localities
- Del Norte
- Comments
- In the Watershed Letterman's needlegrass has been collected fairly often, from all regions of the Valley except for the Basins. Eriocoma lettermanii prefers drier habitats, from sagebrush-juniper foothills to open meadows of spruce and aspen. In Colorado, it is more abundant on the Western Slope than in the Watershed. In the USA this needlegrass is reported from all Western states, reaching not quite up to the Canadian border but all the way down to the Mexican. It follows the Rio Grande drainage not quite to this border nor into Texas. Note that it can be separated from Eriocoma nelsonii, with which it shares the same territory, by its longer palea. Some authorities still place Eriocoma lettermanii in its traditional genus, Achnatherum (e.g., BONAP 2025, Allred et al. 2021). Ackerfield (2022) and POWO (2025) now place this and another other needlegrasses in Eriocoma.
- Annotation