Single Record

WildlifePreserves: Alamosa, Baca, Blanca Wetlands, Great Sand Dunes, San Luis Lakes

PhotoRecords: YES Rich Haswell: Alamosa Co, Alamosa NWR 11 Sept 2016; Saguache Co, Baca NWR, inside refuge and beside Hwy 17, 17 Sept 2021

Comments: Present in shrubland and pinyon-juniper foothills all around the Watershed, Greene's rabbitbrush is probably more common than the herbarium records indicate. In the field Chrysothamnus greenei can easily be taken as a small C. viscidiflorus, the more familiar plant. The most useful distinguishing character are the acuminate floral bracts with setulose tips. Compared to the leaves of C. viscidiflorus, those of C. greenei can be narrower (0.5-1.0 mm) and have only one nerve, but in these respects there is an overlap. The Watershed occurrences lie on the eastern edge of the USA distribution, which is chiefly confined to Nevada, Utah, Arizona, southwest Colorado, and northwest New Mexico. Note that Dixon selects C. greenei as the signature species for a Valley plant community situated below the pinyon-juniper community on "dry, well-drained slopes or where overgrazing and other disturbances have occurred," associated with Gutierrezia sarothrae, Hymenoxys richardsonii, and Krascheninnikovia lanata (2012, p. ii).