Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Mertensia franciscana [Mertensia alba] [Mertensia grandis]
- Family
- Boraginaceae
- CommonName
- Franciscan bluebell
- Presence
- YES
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1912
- LatestDate
- 2024
- Ecosystem
- montane, subalpine
- Geobotanical
- Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras
- Counties
- Conejos, Costilla, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Archuleta, San Juan
- Passes
- Cumbres, Stony, Wolf Creek
- WildlifePreserves
- Other Localities
- Comments
- Franiciscan bluebell has been collected along streams and in mesic shaded areas (e.g., under cottonwoods), but only from the south part of the Watershed, e.g., Forbes Park west of La Veta Pass, or Poso Creek west of La Garita. BONAP, however, shows it from western Colorado counties considerable north of the Watershed. The USA distribution is concentrated in the four corners region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. It follows the Rio Grande drainage through New Mexico into west Texas. Note that the key to Mertensia in Ackerfield 2022 is misleading (p. 227). Couplet two says that the upper leaf surface of M. franciscana is "lacking pustulate hairs" whereas, by the usually meaning of "pustulate," some of the hairs there are "pustulate-based" (Weber and Wittmann, Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope, 4th ed., p. 125).
- Annotation