For nearly two centuries after Ruiz and Pavon named Gilia, the genus was highly inclusive and variable with many of its members hybridizing.  It had become a catchall genus.  But in the 20th century the genus was reexamined often and, especially over the last 50 years, a number of its members have been placed into other Polemoniaceae genera: Giliastrum, Saltugilia, Navarretia, Ipomopsis, Aliciella, Allophyllum, Linanthus, etc.

     In 1998 J. Mark Porter, Polemoniaceae expert with the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, placed all species shown on this page in the Aliciella genus.  As Larry Blakely tells it in his informative web site, Who's In a Name, 

In 1892, while botanizing in Utah and Colorado (the latter being the state in which she came to maturity as a botanist), [Alice] Eastwood discovered a new Gilia which she named Gilia triodon in an 1893 publication....  All of us who have struggled to identify Gilias would readily agree that it is a difficult and diverse group.  Members of several current genera, such as Linanthus and Loeseliastrum, were, in Asa Gray's time, included within Gilia.  Many botanists over the years have made attempts to sort out the variability and come up with better groupings of this disparate mélange of species.  In 1905... August Brand came to believe that Eastwood's plant was sufficiently different to warrant a new genus, which he named Aliciella in recognition of her as the discoverer, and also out of gratitude for Eastwood's help with specimens. People aren't usually honored with plant names based on their given name, but there already was a genus Eastwoodia, with one species, for a shrub of the sunflower family (Eastwoodia elegans Brandegee) which Eastwood discovered in central California....

Brand's genus Aliciella was not widely accepted and was relegated to footnote status throughout most of the 20th century. In a recent attempt to straighten out the Phlox family problem children, based on DNA analyses, J. Mark Porter, Rancho Santa Ana botanist, has revived the genus name and placed many former members of Gilia in it.

Click for more Gilia species.

Townshend Brandegee made the discovery of this plant on the Hayden Survey of 1874 in Colorado.  In Brandegee's "Flora of Southwestern Colorado" report, appended to the Hayden Survey report of 1876, he said of the plant, "[It is] a handsome species common upon the mesas of the Mancos [River]...."  In 1876 Asa Gray named the plant Gilia haydenii, the specific epithet honoring the very popular Ferdinand Hayden, head of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, 1867-1879.  (More biographical information about Hayden.)

As explained at the top of this page, the genus name of this plant was changed in the late 20th century from Gilia to Aliciella, honoring Alice Eastwood.   (More biographical information about Eastwood.)

Foothills. Openings. Spring.
Highway 160 near Mesa Verde National Park, June 3, 2004.

Foothills. Openings. Spring.
Highway 160 near Mesa Verde National Park, June 3, 2004.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Questionable presence

Range map for Aliciella haydenii