Castilleja

Publication of the Wyoming Native Plant Society

March 2014, Volume 33(1)

Posted at vvww.wynps.org

Wyoming SNOW-and-Tell

Mountain snowpack is a major source of river
water and groundwater across Wyoming [Knight
1994), so snowpack conditions provide an inkling of
the growing-season-to-come. The volume of water in
snow cannot be predicted from snow depth alone
because it can be wet or dry. To gauge water
supplies for irrigation and reservoirs, the Natural
Resource Conservation Service and Bureau of
Reclamation routinely monitor both the depth and
water content of snow in a mountain network of 89
Snow Telemetry [SNOTEL] sites across the state.

Picea engelmannii, by Bobbi Angell. From: Taylor, RJ.
1993. Picea. Pages 369-373. In: Flora of North America
Editorial Committee, ed. Flora of North America, North of
Mexico. Volume 2. Pteridophytes and
Gymnosperms.Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Table 1. Wyoming Snowpack Summaries, from:
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snowcourse/sc-

snowpack.html ) for 1 March 2014

Area of Wyoming

% of last year

% of median

Northwest

149

134

Northeast

152

139

Southeast

163

126

Southwest

160

131

As of 1 March 2014, all corners of Wyoming show
above-average SNOTEL snowpack, and the contrast is
even greater in drawing direct comparisons between
the current winter and the past one [Table 1). All
major watersheds are well above average in spite of
isolated exceptions. [Cont. p. 3)

Engelmann spruce - the Man Behind the Tree

George Engelmann [1809-1884) was regarded as
the great American authority on conifers of his time,
and was a proponent of the radical new view that
gymnosperms are separate from and more primitive
than angiosperms. The naming of a tree in his honor,
Engelmann spruce [Picea engelmannii Parry ex
Engelmann), was fitting in the eyes of Asa Gray, who
wrote:

'The splendid Spruce, the fairest of them all, which
bears the name of Engelmann, will still, it is to be
hoped, cover with noble forests the highest slopes of
the Rocky Mountains, recalling to men, as long as
the study of trees occupies their thoughts, the
memory of a pure, upright, and laborious life."
[Sargent 1889; cited in Williams 2003). Cont. p. 10

In this issue:

Addition to Flora 3

Ongoing Inventory of Wyoming's Flora 4

Bryophyte Inventory Bonanza 6

Growing Native Plants: Annual Forbs 8

WYNPS News

BY-LAWS AMENDMENTS PASS : All the proposed
amendments passed - many thanks to all who voted.
The revised by-laws will be available on the website
Offieers page.

YOU CAN RENEW ON-LINE : Membership renewals
can now be done through PayPal on the homepage
f www.wvnps.org T an option that makes it easier
than ever!

2014 ANNUAL MEETING : Mark your calendars for
the 2014 Annual Meeting! We will meet the weekend
of June 20-22. A Saturday, 21 June event, offering
both hioblitz and tours, will be at Red Canyon in
collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and
Wyoming Audubon! Watch for more information
online and in the next newsletter.

WELCOME TO NEW WEBMASTER : In January,
Brenna Marsicek took the helm of our homepage,
getting our By-Laws posted and setting up electronic
voting. Contact her at brennamarsicek@gmaiLcom .
She took over from Melanie Arnett who got the
homepage up and running - THANK YOU both!!

Wyoming Native Plant Society
P.O.Box 2449
Laramie, WY 82073

WYNPS Board -2014
President: Dorothy Tuthill, Laramie
r dtuthill@uwvo.edu1
Vice-President: Karen Clause, Pinedale
r kdclause@centurytel.net )
Sec.-Treasurer: Ann Boelter, Laramie
r amb749@vahoo.com1
Board-at-large:

Joan Lucas, Wilson [T3-T4)

r ioanlucaswv@gmail.com 1
Walt Fertig, Phoenix, AZ [T4-T5)
r waltola64@gmail.com 1

NEW MEMBERS : Please welcome the following new
members to WYNPS: Joyce Batson, Jackson; Jeanne
Brown, Pinedale; Patricia Cavicchioni, Jackson;
Jackson Hole Llamas, Jackson; Robby McMinn,
Hillsboro, KS; Debra Patla, Moran; Jeffrey Rose,
Madison, WI; Francis Leland Russell, Witchita, KS;
Tanya Skurski, Lander; Steve Swan, Jackson; Ellen
Wheeler, Cheyenne.

Treasurer's Report : Balance as of 9 February 2014:
Scholarship = $2,015.50; General = $5,524.89; Total =
$7,540.39.

CHAPTER CORNER

The next Teton Chapter program is: Tuesday, March
25, 6:00 p.m. “A Walk Around Wyoming, Rare
Wildflowers." Charmaine Delmatier, botanist, will
lead a virtual journey across landscapes of Wyoming,
highlighting rare flowers. Where: Teton Co. Library
Ordway Auditorium, 125 Virginian Lane, Jackson. For
more information, see: tetonplants@gmail.com .

The new Sublette Chapter is embarking on a 2 1 -
month journey! Once-a-month family and key
reviews are taking place over winter noon hours,
getting to know 21 of the more familiar Wyoming
plant families. These herbarium noon hours are open
to one and all [bring your own lunch), and have been
running on the Thursday of the month, at the BLM
Pinedale Field Office in the Conference Room, lead by
Julie Kraft and Karen Clause. For more information,
contact Julie r iewelyjoe@hotmail.com ).

Editor: Bonnie Heidel r bheidel@uwvo.edu 1
Webmaster: Brenna Marsicek

r brennamarsicek@gmail.com 1
Sublette Chapter: Julie Kraft, President
r iewelvioe@hotmail.com1

Teton Chapter: Amy Taylor, Treasurer - see website
http://tetonplants.wordpress.com/ or email
r tetonplants@gmail.com )

Bighorn Native Plant Society: P.O. Box 21, Big Horn,
WY 82833 [Jean Daly, Treasurer)

2014 FIELD TRIPS : Please contact your nearest
chapter or the newsletter editor if you are planning a
2014 Wildflower Field Trip. We simple need date,
time, location, plants to be sought, distance, difficulty,
and any special instructions; needed before 1 May.
Hike offerings will be on the homepage and mailed.

The Next Deadline : Please send articles and
announcements for the May issue by 16 April.

Contributors to this Issue : Ann Boelter, Robert Dorn,
Bonnie Heidel, Yelena Kosovich-Anderson, Julie Kraft,
and Amy Taylor.

2

Addition to Flora

New variety of Astragalus hyalinus
(summer milkvetch)

Astragalus hyalinus M.E. Jones var. glabratus Evert
ex Dorn is the newest addition to the state flora
[Dorn 2014), with a story behind it. Erwin Evert first
discovered a population of Astragalus hyalinus
[summer milkvetch) in 1981 at the northwest edge of
the species' range. He noted that the dorsal surface of
the petals were glabrous unlike the typical variety
which has the dorsal surface of the petals
conspicuously villous.

validated the name that Evert provided, adding
description and recognition of type specimens.

Variety ^/ahrati/s tends to have fewer ovules [6-8
vs 8-9) in addition to the glabrous surface on the
back of petals. It was included in the Astragalus key
of Dorn [2001) as an undescribed taxon on p. 202.
Otherwise it matches Astragalus hyalinus, a species
that is distinguished from other 3 -leaflet mat-forming
milkvetches by the long calyx tube, 5.5 mm or more
long, and the fiddle-shaped banner, in addition to the
relatively late blooming period. The new variety is
known only from Park County, Wyoming, in foothills
west of Cody.

In Evert's annotated catalog and atlas of plants of
the Yellowstone area [Evert 2010), he treated these
plants as “++Astragalus hyalinus ]ones var. glabratus
undescribed variety." The double plus meant a taxon
endemic to the Greater Yellowstone area. Evert was
tragically killed by a grizzly bear after completing his
publication in 2010. In his stead, Robert Dorn

References

Dorn, R. D. 2001. Vascular Plants of Wyoming, third
edition. Mountain West Publishing, Cheyenne, WY
Dorn, R.D. 2014. A new variety of Astragalus hyalinus
[Fabaceae) from Wyoming. Phytologia 96[1):26-
27.

Evert, E. F. 2010. Vascular Plants of the Greater
Yellowstone Area: Annotated Catalog and Atlas.
Park Ridge, IL.

Continued from p. 1

How does a SNOTEL site work? Here's one example:
[From: http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/ )

The Natural Resources Conservation Service [NRCS) has a SNOTEL site at 3115 m elevation near
Brooklyn Lake that remotely samples all precipitation, the minimum, maximum and average temperature,
snow depth, and water content.

A typical SNOTEL remote site consists of measuring devices and sensors, a shelter house with an antenna
for the radio telemetry equipment, and solar panels used to keep batteries charged. A standard sensor
configuration includes snow pillows, a storage precipitation gauge, and a temperature sensor. The snow
pillows are envelopes of stainless steel or synthetic rubber containing an antifreeze solution. As snow
accumulates on the pillows, it exerts pressure on the solution. Automatic measuring devices in the shelter
house convert the weight of the snow into an electrical reading of the snow's water equivalent-that is, the
actual amount of water in a given volume of snow. From:
http : / /www.fs.fed.us /rm /boise/AWAE /experimentalforests /glees. html

Reference [for article on p. 1)

Knight, D.H. 1994. Mountains and plains: the ecology of Wyoming landscapes. Yale University Press. 338 pp.

3

Ongoing Inventory of Wyoming's Flora
By Robert Dorn

When I began working on the Wyoming
vascular flora in 1969, there were not enough
collections to assign county distributions to the
various taxa in any meaningful way. To do so would
have given a false impression of their actual
distributions. As a result, in my Manual of the
Vascular Plants of Wyoming [Dorn 1977) I used
quadrants of the state [NW, SW, NE, SE) to indicate
known distributions. By 1988, with the extensive
collecting by Ron Hartman and his students and Ernie
Nelson at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, there were
enough collections to meaningfully use 10 areas [NW,
NWC, NEC, NE, CW, C, CE, SW, SC, SE) for assigning
distributions in the first edition of Vascular Plants of
Wyoming [Dorn 1988). I attempted to include
mountains and either plains or basins in each area
and used county lines for boundaries. By the third
edition [Dorn 2001), the collections were finally
adequate to meaningfully use counties for
distribution purposes.

It has now become more challenging to find
new county records so we are ready to advance to
the next stage in our inventory of the state's flora by
using latilongs to document distributions. Latilongs
are blocks of 1 degree of latitude by 1 degree of
longitude, roughly 70 x 50 miles. These were
introduced for bird distributions by P. D. Skaar at
Montana State University [Skaar 1969, 1975) and
used by Diem [1976) in Wyoming for the first time.
The disadvantage of counties is that they represent
very different sized areas and often have irregular
boundaries. Latilongs are roughly equal in area and
have the same shape. There are 28 latilongs in
Wyoming [see map at end). Those along the eastern
border are slightly smaller and those along the
western border slightly larger because the state's
borders do not exactly correspond to the 104 degree
and 111 degree longitude lines. In addition, those in
the north are slightly smaller than those in the south
because of the geometry of a sphere. For all practical
purposes, they are roughly equal in size and shape. A
GPS conveniently tells you which latilong you are in.

I have recently begun concentrating on
latilongs 20, 21, and 28 since they are close. If you
are into collecting herbarium specimens, you might
consider picking a latilong to concentrate on. We can

call this “Adopt a Block." You can either try to collect
every plant species and variety you can find in the
block, or, you can generate a known species/variety
list for the block and collect only plants that have not
yet been collected in the block. Generating a
species/variety list is relatively easy. I will illustrate
the process with an example. You only need internet
access to the Rocky Mountain Herbarium database
online [ www.rmh.uwyo.edu ).

The most efficient way to generate a
species/variety list is to take it a step at a time. I will
use latilong 21 as an example. By looking at the map
of latilongs, we can see that parts of four counties are
within the latilong: Converse, Goshen, Niobrara, and
Platte. Start with the county that is likely to have the
most species within the latilong, Goshen in this case
since it has a larger area than Platte and Converse
and has more species than Niobrara. In the Rocky
Mountain Herbarium website, click on “RM Specimen
Database," insert Wyoming in the state space and
Goshen in the county space and click on "Show
Checklist" to generate a species checklist. Next go to
the right side of the screen where it says "Download
as:" and click on rtf and save the list to your
computer. You should then be able to print out the
list. To save paper, select the entire list, change the
font size to 8, and select 2 columns from the column
icon. Next, by looking at a map that has townships,
ranges, and sections as well as latitude and longitude
we see that latilong 21 includes townships 24
through 35 [but only the south half of 35, that is
sections 19 through 36) and ranges 60 through 68
[but only the east half of 68, that is sections 1-3, 10-
15,22-27, and 34-36).

Now go to the Rocky Mountain Herbarium
website, click on "RM Specimen Database," insert
Wyoming in the state space and Goshen in the county
space, and enter and search one at a time each
species or variety from your checklist. If you find a
collection for a given species or variety whose
location is within the townships and ranges outlined
above [or is within 42° N and 104° W), that
constitutes a record for the latilong. Collections with
only a landmark location can be checked against a
map to see if they are within the latilong. If you do
not find a collection in the outlined area, then all
collections will be in another latilong [28 in this
case). After the Goshen County list is searched, start
over with another county, say Niobrara, and do the
same thing. You can ignore the species or varieties

4

that you already found a record for in the latilong 21
part of Goshen County. After Niobrara County is
searched, do Platte County ignoring species and
varieties already recorded for the latilong portion of
Goshen and Niobrara counties. Finally, do the same
for Converse County. Now you should have a good
approximated list of collections for latilong 21.

Based on my lists for latilongs 20, 21, and 28,
expect between 700 and 1000 species for a latilong.
Latilongs with mountains will have more species
than those without mountains. Deliver your properly
labeled specimens to the Rocky Mountain Herbarium
to be added to their database. Locations in latitude
and longitude are desirable on the labels.

. 2001. Vascular plants of Wyoming. ed.

Mountain West Publ., Cheyenne, WY. 412 pp.

Skaar, P. D. 1969. Birds of the Bozeman latilong. Publ.
by author, Bozeman, MT.

. 1975. Montana bird distribution.

Preliminary mapping by latilong. Publ. by author,
Bozeman, MT.

The 28 latilongs of Wyoming [Dorn & Dorn 1999)
References

Diem, K. L. 1976. An avian monitoring and rapid
information retrieval system. Wyoming Game &
Fish Dept. Wildl. Tech. Rep. No. 5. 81 pp.

Dorn, J. L. & R. D. Dorn. 1999. Wyoming birds. 2"^^ ed.

Mountain West Publ., Cheyenne, WY. 187 pp.

Dorn, R. D. 1977. Manual of the vascular plants of
Wyoming. 2 vols. Garland Publ. Inc., New York, NY.
1498 pp.

. 1988. Vascular plants of Wyoming.

Mountain West Publ., Cheyenne, WY. 340 pp.

Plant-Collecting Pointers
for Charles Darwin

[The following was written by fS.
Henslow and sent to Charles Darwin
during the voyage of the Beagle.

Quoted from: D.M. Porter, 1986.
Charles Darwin's vascular plant
specimens from the voyage of HMS
Beagle, Botanical Journal of the
Linnaean Society 93:1-172. [reprinted
from Chinquapin 21[4)]).

“Most of the plants are very
desirable to me. Avoid sending scraps.
Make the specimens as perfect as you
can - roots, flov/ers and leaves and you
can't do v/rong. In large ferns and
leaves fold them back upon themselves
on one side of the specimen and they
will get into a proper sized paper.
Don't trouble yourself to stitch them
[to the paper] - for [they] really travel
better without it, and a single label per
month to those of the same place is
enough except that you have plenty of
spare time or spare hands to write
more.”

...More current and detailed instructions
are provided on the Rocky Mountain
Herbarium homepage

[ http ://www.rmh.uwyo.edu /about/policies.p

hp#services

5

Bryoph5^e Inventory Bonanza

By Yelena Kosovich-Anderson

Two remarkable events coincided in my life as a
field botanist in September, 2013: 1 collected my
17,000th bryophyte voucher specimen in Wyoming,
and it's also been 10 years since 1 made my first
collecting trip across this state.

The past decade has been a very exciting time for
me. It was spent exploring the flora of the least-
studied group of higher plants, bryophytes, in the
most remote corners of majestic mountain country of
Wyoming. My task was very inspiring and motivating
but also quite challenging. 1 clambered over outcrops
of ancient granite rocks at Vedauwoo to pick up the
beautiful star-like moss Syntrichia, crawled long
hours on the alpine
tundra of the highest
peaks of the Snowy
Range in search of
the rare and tiny
arctic-alpine moss
Stegonia, slogged
through the
subalpine fens of
the Wind River Range
to find three-rowed
Meesia, hiked miles
in the Laramie
Mountains to finally
discover the
wonderful gigantic form of the rare water moss
Scouleria on wet shaded boulders in Friend Creek...
Following meticulous specimen processing [cleaning-
packing-labeling) and subsequent close-up studies, 1
plunged into lab research... micropreparations, cross-
sections, determinations, and if very lucky, possibly
new discoveries... 1 was on the road and camping in
summer, and glued to the microscope and piles of
identification guides and monographs in winter. For
the last decade, this kind of schedule has been my
mode of life. Today, marking my seventeen
thousandth collection, 1 am happy to report on my
long-term collecting efforts in Wyoming and creation
of a large and representative collection of bryophytes
for what was formerly one of the least bryologically
explored states in the country.

My bryological work in Wyoming started in 2003, as
a part of advanced courses in botany and
environmental studies at the University of Wyoming

[UW) Botany Department, Laramie, WY, and research
at the UW Rocky Mountain Herbarium. They were
organized under the auspices of the Junior Faculty
Development Program. Upon finishing this program,
after some pause in my field research, 1 returned to
conducting bryophyte floristic inventories in
Medicine National Forest on a voluntary basis.
Beginning in 2008 and continuing up to the present, 1
have conducted bryophyte floristic inventories on
Shoshone National Forest, with US Forest Service
support as a Wyoming Natural Diversity Database
contractor. Later in 2013, 1 received the Markow
Grant from Wyoming Native Plant Society to fill the
key gaps in documenting the bryophyte flora of the
Medicine Bow National Forest [see my article in the
December 2013 issue of Castilleja).

Quick facts about the author's herbarium

* The total number of voucher specimens is over
17,000, including roughly 1,000 specimens of
liverworts. The Herbarium contains about 20,000
fully processed duplicates [for exchange and as a part
of the author's private herbarium). One advantage of
a modern herbarium like this is that each specimen
label contains detailed GPS location data.

* Geography of collections. The nucleus of the
Herbarium consists of specimens from mountains of
southern Wyoming [Pole Mts., Laramie Mts., Sierra
Madre, and Medicine Bow Mts., including the peaks of
Snowy Range), west-central Wyoming [Wind River
Range), and northwestern Wyoming [Beartooth
Mts.). The bryophyte flora of the high plains [mainly
from the south-east of the state) is less well
represented in the Herbarium. Collections to date
span eleven counties: Albany, Carbon, Converse,
Crook, Fremont, Hot Springs, Laramie, Natrona, Park,
Platte, and Teton.

* New data. The first annotated checklists on the
bryophytes of the Shoshone National Forest [in the
Beartooth Mts. and the southeastern portion of the
Wind River Range) and the Medicine Bow National
Forest have been completed. Up to the present, the
author's Herbarium investigation has documented 14
moss species and 4 genera that are additions to
Wyoming flora; one species is new to the North
American continent, one variety is newly described.
The new state distribution information is being
incorporated into Volume 28 of Flora of North
America [in press) and results also provide a
framework for understanding county distribution.

Syntrichia ruralis, by
Y. Kosovich-Anderson

6

Above: The author studying specimens. Bryophyte species
require specially-prepared slide mounts for positive
identification and can be identified only under the
microscope.

Duplicate specimen of some taxonomic groups are
also deposited at:

• ASC [Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff,

AZ],

• BING [State University of New York,

Binghamton, NY}

• BONN [University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany}

• CAS [California Academy of Sciences, San
Francisco, CA},

• COLO [University of Colorado Museum,

Boulder, CO},

• DUKE [Duke University, Durham, SC},

• H [University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland},

• MHA [Main Botanical Garden, Russian
Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia},

• MO [Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis,

MO},

• MONTU [University of Montana, Missoula, MT},

• S [Swedish Museum of Natural History,
Stockholm, Sweden}

• US [United States National
Herbarium/Smithsonian Institution,

Washington DC.}

• VBGl [Botanical Garden-Institute, Vladivostok,
Russia}.

My collections are being added to the on-line
database of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium and
included in a nationwide data base of the bryophytes
of the major herbaria.

Editor's Note: Wyoming may he better represented in the
next two bryophyte volumes of the Flora of North America
thanks to work by the author. For more information on
bryophytes [mosses and liverworts], see the Bryophyte Flora
of North America.

f http : / / WWW, mob ot. or g/plantscience /b fna /b fnam l .

Acknowledgements

The help of many people, especially my local
colleagues, is highly appreciated. The following individuals
made my field research in Wyoming possible: Ronald
Anderson [volunteer}, Kent Houston and Kathy Roche [U.S.
Forest Service}, Ron Hartman [UW Rocky Mountain
Herbarium}, Ann Boelter [Wyoming Native Plant Society}
and Bill Weber [University of Colorado Museum}. 1 wish to
thank them for their support. My gratitude is extended also
to all of my bryology colleagues, who understand the
challenges and importance of this kind of research, and
who encouraged my work in Wyoming. It is my privilege
and honor to create a herbarium documenting the state
bryoph3Ae flora for further taxonomic, ecological,
phytogeographical studies in the Rocky Mountain region. 1
thank Ron Wittmann for reading the first version of this
manuscript and making necessary corrections.

Publications and technical reports,
based on author's herbarium:

Kosovich-Anderson Y. 1. 2013. Bryophyte flora of the Medicine
Bow National Forest. Castilleja 32[4}: 3-4.
Kosovich-Anderson Y. 1. 2011-2012. An annotated checklist of
bryophytes of the southeastern portion of the Wind River
Range, Wyoming. A technical report, prepared for
Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, Laramie, WY, and
Shoshone National Forest, USDA Forest Service.

Andrus, R. E. & Y. I. Kosovich-Anderson. 2011. Two Sphagnum
Sect. Cuspidate, new to Western conterminous United
States. Evansia 28[2}: 54-57.

Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. 2011. Pogonatum urnigerum and
Dicranella palustris, new to Wyoming. Evansia 28[4}: 107-
108.

Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. & W. A. Weber. 2011. Mosses of the
Wyoming’s Beartooth Plateau: new noteworthy records
for the Rocky Mountain region. Phytoneuron 2011-58: 1-
10 .

Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. 2011. Two Dicranaceae species from
the Beartooth Plateau, new to Wyoming. Evansia 2 8 [2}:
50-53.

Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. & M. S. Ignatov. 2010. Three

interesting Brachytheciaceae mosses from the Beartooth
Plateau [Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, U.S.A.}. Arctoa 19:
183-190.

Kosovich-Anderson Y. 1. 2008-2010. An annotated checklist of
bryophytes of the Beartooth Mountains of Wyoming,
Shoshone National Forest. A technical report, prepared for
Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, Laramie, WY, and
Shoshone National Forest, USDA Forest Service.
Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. 2008. Recent bryophyte collections
from southern Wyoming, U.S.A. American Bryological and
Lichenological Society Conference, Asilomar, California,
13-19 July, 2008. ABLS Abstracts of Contributed Papers:
10 - 11 .

http://www.lichenology.org/lAL6_ABLSabstracts.pdf
Kosovich-Anderson, Y. 1. & J. R. Spence. 2008. A remarkable
new range extension of the subtropical Brachymenium
vinosulum Cardot [Bryaceae}. Evansia 2 5 [4}: 90-93.

7

Growing Native Plants

Part 11. Annual Forbs

By Robert Dorn

Annual forbs are used mostly for flower beds,
planters, or pots that are changed every year. They
can also be used to get a flower display the first year
of planting. Some annuals readily reseed themselves
but others need to be replanted by hand. To see the
following five examples in color, go to the Society
website.

Cleome serrulata, Purple Beeplant, can grow
to 6 feet tall and wide with a thick stem and large
taproot. Most commonly it is 3 feet or less tall. The
leaves are compound with 3 narrow leaflets each to 3
inches long. The flowers are pale pink to lavender,
rarely white, to 1 inch across, and clustered at the
tips of the many stems and branches. They bloom for
a relatively long period between July and September.

Cleome serrulata, Goshen County

The flowers are exceedingly attractive to bees.
Many of these bees may be important pollinators of
fruit trees and other crops. Beeplants may keep your
bees happy for the rest of the summer after the fruit
trees are pollinated in the spring. An unresearched
question is whether they draw the bees away from
pollinating crops or whether they attract more bees
to an area so that more crop plants get pollinated.
The seeds are much sought after by birds, especially
Mourning Doves. The plants occur naturally in
disturbed, especially sandy areas in the valleys,
plains, and basins. They prefer full sun and well
drained soils and are drought tolerant. They self seed

readily if the birds and rodents don't get all of the
seeds. They are easy to grow from seed. Sow seed in
the fall and cover with Vk inch of soil. If sown in
spring, cold stratification for 60 days beforehand may
help germination. Seed is commercially available.

Euphorbia marginata, Snow on the Mountain,
grows to 2 feet tall and 8 inches wide. The leaves are
up to4 inches long and about half as wide, the lower
usually blue-green and the upper with increasing
amounts of white on their margins, the uppermost
almost entirely white with a green midrib. The
flowers are inconspicuous. The plants are grown for
the leaf appearance which resembles a white
poinsettia. The seed capsules explode spreading
seeds widely, but being an annual, the plants are easy
to keep controlled. The plants occur naturally in
disturbed areas on the plains. They prefer full sun or
light shade and loose, well drained soils. The plants
are considered poisonous and some people develop a
rash when their skin is exposed to the milky juice.
They are easily grown from seed sown in spring. It is
also in the nursery trade.

Euphorbia marginata, Crook County

Helianthus annuus, Annual Sunflower, grows
to 6 feet tall and half as wide. The leaves are up to 12
inches long and half as wide and somewhat
triangular. The flowers are the true sunflower with a
circle of yellow rays surrounding a center of
brownish disk flowers. The flower heads are to 3
inches across or occasionally larger with one to few
at the tips of stems and branches. It flowers from July
to September. The seeds are highly sought after by
birds, especially if the plants are left standing into
winter. If you plan to grow other species on the site

8

in the following year, remove the plants including
roots in late fall since the remains can inhibit other
plants. The plants occur naturally in disturbed areas
in the basins, valleys, and plains. They prefer full sun
and loose, well drained soils. They are easy to grow
from seed. There are many cultivars in the nursery
trade.

Lupinus pusillus, Goshen County

Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Goshen County

Helianthus annuus, Goshen County

Lupinus pusillus, Small Lupine, grows to about
10 inches tall and as wide. The leaves are compound
with mostly about 7 narrow leaflets arising from the
same point. The flowers are typical pea flowers that
are purple and marked with white and clustered
along the upper part of the stems. Blooming is from
May to July or August. The plants occur naturally in
the valleys, basins, and plains. They prefer full sun
and sandy soil. Sow seed about 14 inch deep after
scarification either in fall or spring.

Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Tanseyleaf
Spinyaster, grows to about 18 inches tall and 12
inches wide. The leaves are finely dissected and to
2.5 inches long. The flowers are sunflower-like but
smaller, the rays light blue to lavender and the
central disks yellow, the flower heads up tol.5 inches
across with many heads per plant at the tips of stems
and branches. It has a long blooming period from
July to September. The plants occur naturally in dry
open areas of the plains and basins often in disturbed
or sandy soils. They prefer full sun and dry, well
drained, loose soil. It can be grown easily from seed
which is commercially available.

Fungus Flowers

{Editor ’s note: Here is the answer to a repeated “what ’s this ” question.)

In early spring you may find what looks like a small,
showy yellow flower among the sagebrush. Look more
closely and you will see that these flowers are really the
rust covered leaves of rockcress (Ambis/Boechera spp.)
Rockcress is normally a tall, slender wild mustard with
white or lavender flowers. Rocky Mountain Biological
Laboratory researcher Dr. Barbara Roy has found that the
bright yellow rust, a kind of fungus, mimics flowers both
with its color and by causing the host plant to alter the
growth of its leaves so that they are clustered like petals.
The rust also exudes a sweet fluid that flies feed on.
Pollinating flies that normally visit true yellow flowers are
fooled and attracted to the flora mimes, thereby facilitating
reproduction of the rust, which then produces spores that
disperse by wind to infect other plants. From: Darrow, K.
2006. Wild About Wildflowers .WMYidii Pub. Co.,

Glendale, AZ.

9

Engelmann - cont. from p. 1

George Engelmann came to the United States
as a 23-year old German immigrant with a
newly-minted medical degree and unrealized
passion for botany. He set out with a horse and a
gun as a land scout, later to sell them to start
what became a thriving medical practice in Saint
Louis, MO "...that would support his intellectual
interests for the remainder of his life" (Williams
2003]. In his scholarly botany work, breadth of
botanical interest, and central location, he
became "...a veritable crossroads between East
and West" (Williams 2003] and intermediary
between field botanists and academicians,
nationwide and beyond. As such, he built a
major personal herbarium, championed the
creation of Missouri Botanical Garden, and
wrestled with some of the most daunting
taxonomic groups of his adopted country.

References

Sargent, C.S., ed. 1889. Scientific Papers of Asa Gray, 2
volumes. Houghton Mifflin, 1969 reprint.

Williams, R.L. 2003. A Region of Astonishing Beauty - The
Botanical Exploration of the Rocky Mountains. Roberts
Rinehart Publishers, Lanham, MD.

Wyoming Native Plant Society is a non-profit organization
established in 1981 to encourage the appreciation and
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