WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Numerous, erect, unbranched, 1–3-foot tall stems with spikes of lavender (sometimes white), plume-like flowers sprout from underground corms. This popular flower adds vivid fall color to xeriscape gardens and provides an important late-season source of nectar for butterflies, bees, and other insects.

FLOWER: August–October. Numerous flower heads 1/4–3/8-inch (6–9 mm) long form dense spike-like clusters 3–24-inches long on the upper third to half of each stem; each flower head has 3–6 disk flowers, each with 5 spreading, pointed, petal-like lobes and an extended thread-like style split into 2 branches; ray flowers absent.

LEAVES: Alternate, circling stem. Blades narrow, linear, 2–6-inches (5–15 cm) long, 1/32–1/4-inch (1–7 mm) wide, smaller up the stem, margins entire.

HABIAT: Rocky, sandy, loam soils, roadsides; grasslands, pinyon-juniper-ponderosa woodlands.

ELEVATION: 5,200–9,000 feet.

RANGE: West of Mississippi River through Rocky Mt. states.

SIMILAR SPECIES: This is the most widespread of 3 species recorded in NM. Blazing Star, L. ligulistylis, in ne NM plains, has leaves 1/8–5/8-inch (4–17 mm) wide. The wetland species L. lancifolia, hasn’t been recorded in NM since 1901.

NM COUNTIES: Nearly statewide, except some western counties, in mid-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Colfax, Curry, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Guadalupe, Harding, Lea, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Mora, Otero, Quay, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union.