Participant Info

Species

Cirsium undulatum [Cirsium megsacephalum] [Carduus megacephalus] [Carduus undulatus]

Family

Asteraceae

CommonName

wavyleaf thistle

Presence

YES

Status

native

EarliestDate

1934

LatestDate

2020

Ecosystem

basin, foothill

Geobotanical

SSanjuans, NCristos, UBasin

Counties

Alamosa, Conejos, Saguache

Passes

WildlifePreserves

Great Sand Dunes

Other Localities

PhotoRecords

YES Rich Haswell: Alamosa Co, CO Great Sand Dunes July 2013, July 2022

Comments

Of wavyleaf thistle, there are locations scattered around the Watershed: the vicinity of Villa Grove (1934; 1998); the entrance to the Great Sand Dunes NPP (1951); the floodplain of the Rio Grande at the town of Alamosa (1983); the railroad grade at Spanish Creek, near the Great Sand Dunes NPP (1984); North Crestone Creek (1999), and sandy draws of the Great Sand Dunes NPP (2000, 2013, 2022). This beautiful thistle is probably more common than these records suggest, in part due to the reluctance of collectors to take thistle samples. Cirsium undulatum is wide spread throughout the Rockies. In New Mexico it has been collected from nearly every county, following the Rio Grande from Taos Co down to the Mexican border, and in Texas on down through the Big Bend country.

Annotation