Gutierrezia elegans Schneider and Lyon 2008
Discovered August 4, in Lone Mesa State Park,
Dolores County, Colorado
Common Name: Lone Mesa Snakeweed
Habitat: Openings of Mancos Shale Barrens
Elevation: Foothills at approximately 7,500-7,900 feet
Blooming time: July-September  

Common pronunciation of Gutierrezia: Goo-ter-EASE-e-uh
Spanish and scientific Latin pronunciation of Gutierrezia: Goo-tea-air-RAY-see-ah

  The following photographs show the first two Mancos Shale sites on which Gutierrezia elegans was found.  The Shale of the first site (shown in the first four photographs) is far less eroded than the shale of the second site (the last photograph).  The first site has numerous small shale rocks and the soil is quite dense, making it more difficult for vegetation to grow.  On the second site the Mancos Shale is far more weathered and the surface has at least 3-4 times the vegetation cover that the first site has.

   In the photos of the first collection site notice not only the sparseness of the vegetation but also that the vegetation tends to grow in straight lines above the sub-surface Mancos Shale cracks. The first two photos show the surface, the third shows a slope into a water-course eroded area of bare rock, and the fourth, 200 feet farther down that water-course, shows a cross section of the Mancos Shale exposed as the periodic rains and snow-melt cut deeper into the sub-surface.

   As barren as the first site appears, it really has an abundance of plants, and many are unusual plants.  In addition to the endemic Gutierrezia elegans, two other endemics were recently (2005 and 2007) discovered: Physaria pulvinata and another Physaria not yet named. Gutierrezia elegans was discovered in the Park, the other two were first found outside the Park and later also found in the Park.

   In addition to finding these three endemics, we have found at least two dozen other plants not previously found in Dolores County ("county records").  Something about the Mancos Shale is providing conditions just right for these plants to grow  --  and inhibiting the growth of more common plants found nearby.  We have taken soil samples and hope in the near future to chemically analyze the plants themselves to see if that helps us understand what is producing such fertile ground for so many unusual plants.  One theory we are working on now is that it may not be any chemical composition of the Mancos Shale that is fostering the growth of these plants, but instead it is the physical characteristics of the Shale that inhibit the growth of some plants and allow the growth of others.  Seeds of these newly discovered plants and the other unusual ones are obviously finding the Shale a very suitable place to mature.  The soils drain quickly but after a rain hold water at the surface in a paste.  The Mancos Shale cracks are apparently another factor that is favoring the growth of some plants and thwarting others.

How was Gutierrezia elegans discovered?

   Through June and July of 2008 my wife Betty and I (and, of course, our pup, Willi) had been volunteering at Lone Mesa State Park to do a plant survey.  Every week or two we went to the Park to survey and we were continually amazed at the abundance of unusual plants. 

   Our friend Peggy Lyon called us in late July and indicated that the Colorado Natural Heritage Program (which Peggy works for) had received a grant from Colorado State Parks to make a plant list for the Park and to delineate the boundaries of the newly discovered Physarias.  Would we be interested in working together?  Peggy and I went to the Park August 4 and started our work by looking at some of the unusual plants I had previously found with Betty. Peggy then asked me if I knew of any plants nearby that might be the newest of the recently discovered Physarias mentioned above.  From my earlier weeks in the Park I remembered something that I thought might be the yet unnamed Physaria and I went off to find and photograph it. 

   The new Physaria spreads along the ground and as I got up off my belly from photographing it, I noticed that I had been lying down on a lovely, brightly flowered plant.  I studied it, did not know its name, pulled out my copy of Weber's Colorado Flora: Western Slope and tried keying it  --  with no success.  It appeared to be a Gutierrezia but it fit no Gutierrezia description in Weber, so I started at the beginning of the Asteraceae and tried again, and again. 

   I called Peggy over to see if her expertise could help and we wound up repeating my unsuccessful keying routine.   Later that day at home I tried keying the plant in Welsh's A Utah Flora and did get closer.  The unknown Lone Mesa Plant was somewhat similar to Gutierrezia pomariensis, a plant that Welsh had discovered in two northeastern counties of Utah.  Welsh's plant is known from nowhere else, but I thought that perhaps I had found a new population of it in Colorado.  The more I studied the plant, the less likely this seemed to me.  The Lone Mesa plant differed in significant ways. 

   I emailed photos of the plant and some comments about why I did not think it was Gutierrezia pomariensis to Guy Nesom, Asteraceae expert and author of much of the Asteraceae descriptions and keys for the Flora of North America.  He immediately emailed back, "I'd give it 95% confidence that it's an undescribed species". Now that was exciting. 

    I collected a specimen for Guy Nesom and his examination of it convinced him it was a new species. That made it all even more exciting. I knew that Stanley Welsh was going to be a speaker at the Colorado Native Plant Society Annual Meeting in early September, so I thought that I would ask him to look at the plant.  He held it up, thought, and said, "This is not Gutierrezia pomariensis".  Excitement ran another notch higher.  Then he looked at the plant again and said, "This is a new species of Gutierrezia".  Well now that really felt good, and I immediately went in search of Peggy to tell her that Welsh had confirmed what Nesom had first told us: we had a new species.

   The final, ultimate, unequivocal, next step would be to see what Bill Weber, Colorado plant authority, had to say.  I emailed him photos and details and received this reply, "Your new Gutierrezia is beautiful".

   Peggy and I gave our new species of Gutierrezia the specific epithet "elegans" because that summarizes so nicely the plant's elegant qualities of symmetry; abundance of bright yellow flowers; low, spreading growth form; gracefully arching stems; etc.  

    Naming of the genus: 

    From a specimen collected in 1804 by Meriwether Lewis on "the plains of the Missouri", Frederick Pursh (in 1814) named a new species, Solidago sarothrae. 

    From a specimen collected by Sesse and Mocino on their 1787-1803 Spanish Royal Expedition to New Spain, Mariano Lagasca (1776-1839), botanist, and later Director, with the Real Jardin Botanico de Madrid, named a new species and gave it a new genus name, Gutierrezia linearifolia, in his 1816 Genera et Species Plantarum.  (Click to see the Plantarum.  You can read about G. linearifolia on page 30.) 

    The location in which the Sesse and Mocino Gutierrezia plant was collected is unknown.  The Spanish Royal Expedition to New Spain collected not only in New Spain, i.e., Mexico, but also in nearby Central American areas, in the Caribbean, and north of Mexico into California and Alaska. 

    The origin of the genus name, Gutierrezia, is also unknown. In his description of the Gutierrezia linearifolia, Lagasca did not specify who he was honoring with the genus name.  For some reason, though, it has been assumed that the name honors Pedro Gutierrez, variously described as a Spanish nobleman, traveler, or Real Jardin correspondent.

   In 1887 Britton and Rusby re-examined the plants named by Pursh and Lagasca and realized that they were the same species.  They also realized that the plants were not Solidagos, as Pursh had thought, and did deserve the new genus name, Gutierrezia, which Lagasca had given.  Thus we now have Gutierrezia sarothrae.

    Naming of the new Gutierrezia species:   

    Our new species shows the characteristics of the Gutierrezia genus and we gave it the specific epithet “elegans” because the word summarizes so many of the most obvious visual characteristics of this new species: Gutierrezia elegans is delicate with masses of brilliant yellow flowers topping gracefully arching stems that form into a low, domed symmetry. In short, the plant is elegant.

   So how do you pronounce it?   Gutierrezia: Goo-tea-air-RAY-see-ah.

   More biographical information.