Single Record

PhotoRecords: YES Rich Haswell: Rio Grande Co, Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, 7 July 2016

Comments: Under the name "Cicuta maculata," SEINet has only one Watershed record, with an ambiguous location: "Cochetopa National Forest, west of Saguache" (Saguache Co, 1913). But under the incorrect name of "Cicuta douglasii" SEINet shows records scattered from around the Watershed (Rio Grande, Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, and Saguache counties,1934-2016), often from wet ditches by roads. The 2016 photorecord from the Monte Vista NWR was of a plant in a ditch by the visitors tour road. A recent photorecord, 2023, is of a plant just north of Fort Garland (iNaturalist observation #172594841); and a later photorecord, 2024, documents plants growing by Pronghorn trail just south of Del Norte (iNaturalist observation #233721664). As much as poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), Cicuta maculata is very poisonous to humans. The voucher records may under-represent the presence of the species in the Watershed. One can understand the possible reluctance of botanists to collect specimens. Cicuta maculata is present in every state of the USA, and in the Rio Grande drainage through New Mexico to the Mexican border. BONAP also shows a location in the Big Bend country of Texas. Incidentally, in the USA Cicuta douglasii is found only in the Pacific coast states and parts of northern Idaho and western Montana.