Single Record

Species: Artemisia borealis [Artemisia campestris subsp. borealis] [Artemisia campestris subsp. pacifica] [Artemisia campestris var. purshii][Oligosporus pacificus] [Oligosporus groenlandicus]

Counties: Alamosa, Conejos, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache, San Juan

PhotoRecords: YES Patrick Alexander Conejos Co, just west of Conejos Peak (2 July 2018), and southwest of Elwood pass (4 July 2018)

Comments: Artemisia borealis has been collected fairly often in the Watershed, from the west-side mountains and from the north Cristos. It is treated in Weber and Wittmann as Oligosporus groenlandicus. Ackerfield (2022) treats it as Artemisia campestris var. purshii. FNA separates A. borealis from A. campestris, A. borealis being shorter (5-30 cm) and with a thicker, more spiky panicle of flowers. FNA and other authorities treat the Colorado species as A. borealis var. borealis (the species is also Eurasian). For A. borealis, BONAP shows all counties of the Watershed except for Conejos and Costilla. However, SEINet has a collection from Conejos Co (Sharples coll, 2014), and Patrick Alexander has two observations also from Conejos Co (iNaturalist #14066019 and #15369891). The USA distribution is wide spread in the central mountains of Colorado, and with very isolated and scanty locations in all Western states except for Nevada. BONAP does not show the species in the Rio Grande drainage south of Alamosa Co. The number of different names for this species makes distribution maps hard to construct and interpret.