Sanddune ipomopsis (Ipomopsis gunnisonii)
Description
Ipomopsis gunnisonii is an annual or winter annual with narrow, linear, alternate leaves; it is often glandular (see the sand grains stuck to the glandular/sticky hairs in the second photograph); and the usually white but sometimes blue flowers are 6-10 millimeters long, tubular, often with 5 long and narrow lobes. As shown at left, the weakly developed basal leaves are often dead by flowering time (anthesis).I. gunnisonii with linear and entire lower leaves is very similar to I. pumila with tooted or lobed lower leaves. See below.John Torrey and Asa Gray named this species Gilia gunnisonii in 1857 from a specimen collected by Creutzfeldt in 1853 when on the Gunnison Topographic Engineers Expedition in central Utah. The plant was renamed Ipomopsis gunnisonii by Verne Grant in 1956. Gunnison was a highly accomplished and highly respected surveyor, naturalist, and soldier who, with Creutzfeldt and 6 others, was murdered while working on the railroad survey in Utah.
Taxonomic tree
-
Domain: Eukarya
-
-
Kingdom: Plantae
-
-
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
-
-
Class: Magnoliopsida
-
-
Order: Ericales
-
-
Family: Polemoniaceae
-
-
Genus: Ipomopsis
-
-
-
-
-
-
