WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This tailside mountain flower with sprawling to erect hairy stems has showy pinkish-purple flowers with petals that often bend backwards. Arching stamens surround the erect, elongated style. Note the deeply lobed leaves. The plant variation is described as “extensive and baffling” with 4 varieties recorded in NM.

FLOWERS: June–September. 5 dark pinkish to purple, hairy petals, usually bent backwards over 5 green, point-tipped sepals; petals rounded, 3/8–5/8-inch (10–15 mm) long, often marked with darker lines; fruit is a slender capsule, 3/4-1 1/8-inches (20–30 mm) long, pointed like a crane’s bill.

LEAVES: Basal rosette on stalks (petiole) to 7 1/2 inches long (19 cm); blades rounded, 5/8–3 inches wide (1.5–8 cm), deeply cut into 3–5 palmate segments, each cut again into 3–5 lobes usually rounded, surfaces glandular to short hairy or not. Stem leaves opposite, smaller.

HABITAT: Moist sandy, gravelly, loam soils, roadsides, foothills, meadows; pinyon-juniper, ponderosa-oak, aspen-conifer sub-alpine forests.

ELEVATION: 6,000–11,200 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NV, NM, TX, UT, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Wild Geranium, G. richarsonii, widespread in much the same range and habitat, has white to pale-pink flowers and leaf lobes with pointed teeth.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide except se plains in mid- to high-elevation habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Harding, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union, Valencia.