|
SEARCH AND WILDFLOWER HOME PAGE YELLOW FLOWERS CONTACT US
| Accurate identification of the several dozen species of Lomatium is, according to Intermountain Flora, "notoriously
difficult.... Some species are highly variable...."
Both
fruits and flowers are often necessary for identification. Intermountain
Flora further observes that "the distinction between Cymopterus
and Lomatium is subject to failure". Ordinarily one or more of
the Cymopterus dorsal seed ribs have wings; Lomatium seed ribs do not have wings. "Cymopterus newberryi completely bridges the
difference. In this species the dorsal wings vary from nearly or
fully as large as the lateral ones to poorly developed or even
obsolete".
"Loma" is Greek for "border" and refers to the lack of fruit wings. The genus was named by Constantine Rafinesque in 1819. |
|
|
Lomatium
minimum (Little Lomatium) Montane. Meadows. Spring, summer. Lomatium minimum is but two-to-twelve centimeters tall with flower stems not much more than a few centimeters taller. The plants pictured on this page grow on a rocky knoll at 10,400 feet. You will notice that leaves in the 2018 photographs are darker green than those in the 2011 photographs. The only explanation I can give is that moisture was minimal in the winter and spring of 2018 and far more abundant in the winter of 2011. We have visited this knoll a number of times but never before noticed these cute miniatures. Apparently no one else ever has either, for these are a San Juan County, Utah record and the specimens I collected were sent to the BYU Herbarium. As the map below indicates, this plant had previously been found in only three Utah counties -- and nowhere else. After discovering this plant near Bryce Canyon, Mathias named it Cogswellia minima in 1932; he renamed it Lomatium minimum in 1937. |
|
|
Lomatium
minimum (Little Lomatium) Montane. Meadows. Spring, summer. Leaves are divided into numerous leaflets, elliptical with pointed tips and the leaflets often are curved upward from the rachis. |
|
|
Lomatium
minimum (Little Lomatium) Montane. Meadows. Spring summer. Flower petals have fallen but the developing seeds have a beauty of their own. |
Range map © John Kartesz,
County Color Key
|
Range map for Lomatium minimum |
Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state
Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Eradicated
Questionable presence