Participant Info

Species

Symphyotrichum falcatum [Aster falcatus]

Family

Asteraceae

CommonName

white prairie aster

Presence

YES

Status

native

EarliestDate

1935

LatestDate

2024

Ecosystem

basin, shrubland, foothill

Geobotanical

Garitas, SSanjuans, NCristos, UBasin

Counties

Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Saguache

Passes

WildlifePreserves

San Luis Lakes

Other Localities

PhotoRecords

Comments

NEED IN SITU PHOTOS. For white prairie aster in the Watershed, there are about 10 locations, on both sides of the Watershed. One concentration is around Ft. Garland in Costilla Co. Another is in the Conejos River watershed in Conejos Co. The earliest record is from Ute Creek near Ft. Garland (Costilla Co, 1935), the latest from Medano Ranch (Alamosa Co, 2008). The USA population is centered around the Rocky Mountains and the Plains, from the Canadian border down to the Mexican, but also spreads into the desert Southwest. The flower follows the Rio Grande drainage to the Big Bend country of Texas. Note that the Watershed distribution of S. falcatum overlaps with S. ericoides, from which S. falcatum is tricky to distinguish. FNA says that compared to S. falcatum, S. ericoides "has smaller heads with fewer florets in denser arrays."

Annotation