San Juan a few endemics, a few musings: thank you Durango!

Besseya ritteriana

 The San Juan mountains are the most distant of Colorado's mountains from Denver where I live. This gives them an added allure for me, not to mention that they harbor some distinctive and strange endemic plants, like Besseya ritteriana!

http://bonap.net/MapGallery/County/Besseya%20ritteriana.png

 In case you were wondering just HOW endemic this plant is, I downloaded a distributional map from the web showing the counties where B. ritteriana has been found*: I added the red oval to show the general area where the San Juan mountains occur. You may want to compare the San Juans to the Delmarva peninsula shown on the right side of the USA (the peninsula includes all of Delaware and a big chunk of Maryland). There are a LOT of mountains in Colorado! And San Juan has the largest area of any of the ranges within this state!

*note to myself: do check out the Garfield County record: was it a mistake or does it grow on the Flattops too?

A few more shots of the Besseya: a large colony I saw in early July a short distance south of the summit of Red Mountain pass--they glowed brightly in the backlight as I drove past...

 I keep showing pictures of this odd plant for several reasons: it is one of relatively few plants entirely restricted to Colorado (if we annexed the Medicine Bow from Wyoming, the Uinta from Utah and the rest of the Sangre de Cristo from New Mexico, there would be a whale of a lot MORE of them?). Although the genus is tiny (six species) and with the exception of B. alpina, most are relatively homely, they're related pretty closely to Synthyris, which are pretty snazzy (and mostly bright blue). And I someone has to like these modest, strange little plants.

Erysimum "pallasii"

 Then there is the strange case of the purple alpine wallflower. I knew this for decades as E. amoenum, purple flowered cousin to our showy alpine E. nivale. Then one day I'm told by an authority that these are merely ecotypes of the widespread, often bright orange or brick-red Erysimum capitatum (the common tall wallflower of the Western Slope of Colorado. But now some botanists believe our taxon is synonymous with the circumboreal E. pallasii, which it resembles to a degree. Perhaps the Jury is still out on this one?

Here's another plant burdened with complex nomenclature: I have known it for some time as Arenaria saxosa, but nowadays it's subsumed by another, more widespread species (Arenaria lanuginosa var. saxosa). It has been booted into a new species by Colorado's late resident generic splitter (
Sperulastrum lanuginosum subsp. saxosum (A. Gray) W. A. Weber.) Appropriately enough, Per Axel Rydberg called it Arenaria confusa! Although supposedly widespread in Arizona, New Mexico and even California--the San Juans are the only place I've seen this in Colorado.

Perhaps not all that showy, I nevertheless like it enough I'd like to grow it in my garden.

Gentianopsis thermalis

August is the month for gentians in Colorado: we did see Gentiana parryi, which I forgot to photography (I forgot to photograph a lot of plants, not to mention scenery and (ahem) people!)...I have a special fondness for fringed gentians (a lot of close personal encounters with them for one thing)--but also because they inspired one of the finest flower poems in English.

There were Fly agarics (Amanita muscaria)by the hundred on many walks (maybe even by the thousand!)

Anemone globosa

I found this on an earlier scouting trip to Durango, atop Molas Pass near the parking lot: an especially fine form of our ubiquitous anemone.

Of course I forgot to photograph the famous Durango-Silverton narrow gauge train...will a stagecoach make do as a replacement? Durango does flaunt its Western brand at times, appropriate for the city adopted by Louis L'Amour.

Old town Durango (along mainstream) has numerous centenarian or older buildings of character. There is charm in each of Colorado's crazy mountain towns--Durango is near the top on my list.

Of course, all the mountain towns compete in growing amazing flowers along their streets--here is a modest example. You'd think flower abundance correlates to tourist dollars (which may in fact be true).

A glimpse of the "Slater"--Durango's historic and extremely lovely hotel. I'd have liked to have stayed here myself...perhaps one day I might!

I drove up to Fort Lewis many times (a dozen? two dozen?) on my various trips, and invariably there were deer along the way. A LOT of deer.

I was impressed with this mass planting of Yellow Banner (Thermopsis divaricata) which did the job of "groundcovering" on campus..

Alas, most attendees at the conference didn't know to see what has to be Colorado's state champion Trident Maple (Acer buergerianum) which I would never have dreamed would be reliable in our climate!

Nor did we make them go see (as the locals made ME see) this most amazing wall mural composed of the actual stones it illustrates in their geologic sequence around Durango. I'd like this on my wall! Unfortunately, I have too many bookcases for it to fit.

I end with this sad image of Elisabeth Zander (past president of NARGS and our current webmaster) showing m how to manage the microphone the last evening of the conference.

I didn't take a single picture during the conference--despite that a large proportion of attendees were personal friends and the rest of them may well become so in the coming years. Nor of the wonderful speakers--and I only took a few pictures on the hikes.

When the dust is settled (the leadership team is frantic wrapping up finances, details and writing checks still), I shall refrain from crowing except to say that busy as it may have been for me, I enjoyed every minute of the conference. If you haven't joined NARGS, you have no idea what fun you're missing. It's never too late--just click here and do it: Click HERE to find out how to join!