WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

High mountain ridges and cracks in cliffsides make the perfect habitat for this delicate little flower. Look for slender, leafless, 6-inch tall flowering stems with a one-sided spike-like clusters of tiny red flowers. Basal leaves are rounded with toothed lobes.

FLOWERS: July–September. One sided, nodding in bud, non-branching clusters (racemes) along the upper half of the glandular-hairy stem have 15+ flowers. Note that both the 5 whitish-pink petals and the 5 stamens extend slightly beyond the reddish-pink sepal tube, which has spreading tips and covered with long hairs.

LEAVES: Basal only with stems (petioles) with short, glandular hairs. Blades to 3/4-inch (5–20 mm) long, broadly round with 5 lobes with rounded teeth, upper surface hairless, lower surface with glandular hairs, longer on veins; margins with scattered ciliate hairs.

HABITAT: Limestone cliffs in lower and upper montane coniferous forests of the Sandia and Manzano mts.

ELEVATION: 8,000-10,700 feet.

RANGE: NM, endemic to the Sandia and Manzano mountains.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Two other red- to pink-flowering alumroots in NM: H. rubescens, widespread throughout NM mountains, has stamens longer than the sepals and flowers in a panicle (on little branches from the flowering stem); H. sanguinea, only in the Boothill, Hidalgo County, has deep red flowers and stamens shorter than the sepals.

NM COUNTIES: Only in the Sandia and Manzano mountains in mid-to high-elevation, rocky habitats: Bernalillo, Torrance, Sandoval.