Draba grayana
| Draba grayana | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Brassicales |
| Family: | Brassicaceae |
| Genus: | Draba |
| Species: | D. grayana |
| Binomial name | |
| Draba grayana | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Draba grayana, the Grays Peak whitlow-grass or Grays Peak draba, is an alpine species from the cabbage family that grows in Colorado and northern New Mexico.
Description
Grays Peak whitlow-grass grows a dense tuft of leaves and stems from a branched caudex. The caudex is covered in the bases of leaf stalks from previous years. The flowering stems do not branch and are 0.8–6 centimeters long with one to four leaves and thickly to moderately covered in unbranched hairs. The thicker covering of hair on the stems distinguishes it from clawless draba (Draba exunguiculata) which has sparse hairs or is hairless.
Most of the leaves are basal, in one or more rosettes. They are attached to the caudex by leaf stalks and can be 0.4–2 cm long, but are most often 0.6–1.5 cm, with a width of just 1–2 millimeters. They are narrow and grass-like, though can be somewhat oblanceolate, with untoothed, smooth edges.
The bright yellow flowers appear in July and August in its native habitat. The four petals are spoon-shaped, 3–4.5 mm long and 1–2 mm wide and curve inwards like claws.
Taxonomy
In 1904 Per Axel Rydberg scientifically described a variety of Draba streptocarpa which he named grayana. This variety was raised to a species in the Draba genus by Charles Leo Hitchcock in 1941. It is classified along with its genus in the Brassicaceae family. The species has one other heterotypic synonym, Draba alpicola, published in 1923 by George Everett Osterhout, which is an illegitimate name, due to the name being used in an 1862 publication by Johann Friedrich Klotzsch.
Names
The species name is a duel reference to the botanist Asa Gray and to Grays Peak, also named after the botanist, where the species was collected by Rydberg in 1895. It is similarly known by the common names Grays Peak whitlow-grass or Grays Peak draba.
Range and habitat
Grays Peak whitlow-grass is native from northern New Mexico to northern Colorado in the high mountain areas of each state. Until it was collected on Little Costilla Peak in the Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 2002, it was thought to be endemic to Colorado. The area of its range is estimated at 20,000–200,000 square kilometers (7,700–77,200 sq mi), though the area it actually occupies within this range is small. Many of its populations are also small, all save one of the 45 documented occurrences having 100 or fewer plants. However, the single largest population has tens of thousands in it. Two of the populations are in northern New Mexico and the rest are found scattered through Colorado. Most of its populations are east of the Continental Divide in Colorado.
References
Citations
- 1 2 3 NatureServe 2026.
- 1 2 3 POWO 2026a.
- 1 2 3 Windham, Al-Shehbaz & Elven 2020.
- ↑ Weber 1961, p. 111.
- ↑ POWO 2026b.
- 1 2 Jennings 1997, p. 11.
- ↑ Hartman et al. 2006, p. 1227.
Sources
Books
- Jennings, William F. (1997). Bargen, Eleanor Von; Denham, Miriam L.; Steinkamp, Myrna; Coles, Janet; Richards, Velma A.; Martin, Susan S. (eds.). Rare Plants of Colorado (Second ed.). Helena, Montana ; Estes Park, Colorado: Falcon Press ; Rocky Mountain Nature Association in coopeartion with the Colorado Native Plant Society. ISBN 978-1-56044-529-6. OCLC 36001408. Retrieved 6 November 2026.
- Weber, William A. (1961). Handbook of Plants of the Colorado Front Range: Keys for the Identification of the Ferns, Conifers, and Flowering Plants of the Central Rocky Mountains From Pikes Peak to Rocky Mountain National Park, and From the Plains to the Continental Divide (Revised ed.). Boulder, Colorado: University of Colorado Press. OCLC 3975556.
Journal articles
- Hartman, Ronald L.; Nelson, B.E.; Reif, Brian; Jacobs, Brian (2006). "New Vascular Plant Records for New Mexico". SIDA, Contributions to Botany. 22 (2). The Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Inc.: 1225–1233. JSTOR 41969104. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
Web sources
- NatureServe (2 October 2026). "Draba grayana". NatureServe Explorer. Arlington, Virginia. Retrieved 6 November 2026.
- POWO (2026a). "Draba grayana (Rydb.) C.L.Hitchc". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 6 November 2026.
- POWO (2026b). "Draba oreades Schrenk". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 6 November 2026.
- Windham, Michael D.; Al-Shehbaz, Ihsan A.; Elven, Reidar (5 November 2020) [In print 2010, FNA Vol. 7]. "Draba grayana". Flora of North America. Archived from the original on 17 August 2024. Retrieved 9 November 2026.