Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Carduus nutans [Carduus theormeri]
- Family
- Asteraceae
- CommonName
- musk thistle
- Presence
- YES
- Status
- exotic, noxious
- EarliestDate
- 1993
- LatestDate
- 2017
- Ecosystem
- foothill, montane
- Geobotanical
- Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras
- Counties
- Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Rio Grande, Saguache
- Passes
- WildlifePreserves
- Other Localities
- Comments
- BONAP shows musk thistle in all Watershed counties, probably a more up-to-date distribution than Ackerfield (2022), who shows only Mineral, Conejos, and Costilla cos. SEINet only has two vouchers from Costilla Co: 2 miles east of Jarosa (1993), and 0.5 miles north of New Mexico on Hwy 159 (1999). To the west of the Continental Divide, in South San Juan Wilderness, Sharples (2017) found it "infrequent in wilderness, but common along roadsides." In the Watershed, this exotic thistle seems a recent incursion, and the species is relatively uncommon. The USDA cites sources showing that musk thistle is part of the "earliest postfire successional stage in pinyon-juniper communities in Colorado." This exotic from Europe and Asia is reported from all states of the USA except Florida. It is on Colorado's B list of "noxious weeds." It is present in the Rio Grande drainage of New Mexico and most of Texas.
- Annotation