WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Growing in cracks in rocks or on open rocky soil, clusters of slender, brittle stems reach 1–6-inches tall tipped with showy arrays of lemon-yellow flowers with red highlights. Note the green to reddish, succulent leaves are overlapping.

FLOWERS: June–August. Tight clusters of yellow flowers 3/8–3/4-inch wide (10–18 mm) have 5 spreading, lance-shaped petals 1/4–1/2-inch long (6–11 mm), 5 shorter sepals, and yellow anthers.

LEAVES: Basal and alternate on stem, succulent. Basal rosette leaves are linear to oval, 3/16–1 3/16-inches long (5–30 mm), and sharp pointed. Stem leaves 1/4–3/8-inch long (3–10 mm), oval to lance-shaped, green, gray-green to reddish-green, slightly flattened, mostly fallen after flowering. The leaves more or less grow upward against the stem and overlap.

HABITAT: Gravelly, sandy clay loam soils of rocky outcrops. (especially granite), streambanks, meadows, roadsides; pinyon-juniper to spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 8,500–13,000 feet.

RANGE: Mountainous regions throughout western U. S.

SIMILAR SPECIES: One other yellow-flowering Stonecrop in NM. Orpine Stonecrop, S. debile, in Colfax County and northward, has opposite leaves.

NM COUNTIES: Northern NM mountains in mid- to high-elevation, rocky habitats: Bernalillo, Colfax, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Taos.