Montane. Wetlands. Summer.
Above: Bolam Lake, August 15, 2014.
Left: Cross Mountain Trail, August 8, 2007.

Conioselinum scopulorum is found along streamsides and in wet meadows, but it is often unnoticed because it is buried in sedges and grasses and because human beings often avoid these wet areas. 

As the top photograph shows, flower buds often have a tinge of pink. When the attractive, bright white, umbel of flowers eventually unfolds, it garners our attention to its delicate and lovely beauty. 

Finely cut basal leaves can be seen at the very bottom center and right in the photograph, and at the thirteen inch mark you can see the buff-colored sheath that surrounds the petiole of the only stem leaves on this plant.  (Also see the last photograph on this page.)

Asa Gray named this plant Ligusticum scopulorum in 1868 from a specimen collected by John Bigelow in New Mexico (probably on the 1853 Whipple Expedition).  John Coulter and Joseph Rose renamed it Conioselinum scopulorum in 1900.  "Conioselinum" is a combination of two Apiaceae genera names: "Conium" and "Selinum".  Although the plant enjoys wet areas, its specific name, "scopulorum" is Latin for "rocky places".  

Montane. Wetlands. Summer.
Cross Mountain Trail, August 8, 2007.

Montane. Wetlands. Summer.
Cross Mountain Trail, August 8, 2007.

There may be several stem leaves and robust basal leaves; all are finely cut as the photograph indicates.  Compare these leaves and the entire plant to Oxypolis fendleri with which it can easily be confused. The two plants have very similar growth characteristics and the same wet habitats.  In the mountains of the Four Corners area, O. fendleri is by far the more common of the two plants.

Montane. Wetlands. Summer.
Kilpacker Trail, August 3, 2009.

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
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Conioselinum scopulorum