Noteworthy Collections 
from Wyoming 
New Plant Records for Wyoming. The following 
Species (all non-native to Wyoming) have been newly 
documented in the state in the last year: 
Cotoneaster acutifolia (Sharpleaf cotoneaster). 
Laura Welp and I discovered this shrubby member of the 
Rose family growing in a rocky canyon in the foothills of 
the Laramie Range, just outside of Laramie in August 
1999. Although grown as an ornamental in town, this 
individual had clearly not been planted by humans, but 
probably had been dispersed by birds. Since then, we 
have found another small patch of this species that has 
escaped at the edge of town. Sharpleaf cotoneaster is a 
deciduous shrub with leathery, elliptic leaves that are 
dull-green above and pale below, numerous whitish or 
pink-petaled flowers, and black fruits that resemble tiny 
apples. It is native to China, but is widely cultivated in 
the western US. 
Penstemon palmeri var. palmeri (Palmer’s 
penstemon). In the summer of 2000, I noticed a tall, 
glacous-stemmed, pink-flowered forb growing in ledges 
in the red sandstone cliffs of Telephone Canyon while 
doing about 80 mph on Interstate 80 just east of 
Laramie. Suspecting something unusual, Laura Welp 
and I returned later, feigned car trouble, and pulled off 
the freeway to investigate. The plant turned out to be 
Palmer’s penstemon, a species native to pinyon-juniper, 
Ponderosa pine, and desert shrub communities of 
southern Utah, Nevada, California, and Arizona. 
According to Ernie Nelson, this species was probably 
included in the seed mix used to revegetate the highway 
margin following road construction in the canyon over 
the last 3-4 years. It is now spreading beyond the 
road’s edge into the red sandstone cliffs along a 1-mile 
stretch of highway. Palmer’s penstemon is easily 
recognized by its large, inflated, lavender-pinkish corolla 
and spiny-edged, sessile, opposite, upper leaves. 
According to the Intermountain Flora, this plant has also 
become established along 1-80 near Mountain Home, 
Idaho. 
Suaeda linifolia (Flax-leaved sea-blite). Jim 
Glennon of the BLM Rock Springs Field Office and I 
discovered this tall, green, slender-leaved annual 
chenopod along the banks of the Blacks Fork River in 
Sweetwater County in September 1999. Back at the 
Rocky Mountain Herbarium, Bob Dorn and I puzzled over 
the specimen, which clearly did not fit any known 
Wyoming species. Suspecting it might be an 
introduction from Russia, we sent a duplicate of the 
specimen to Noel Holmgren of the New York Botanical 
Garden for determination. Holmgren identified the plant 
as Suaeda linifolia, a native of central Asia and Siberia. 
According to Jochen Schenk of Duke University, an 
authority on the genus, S. linifolia was previously known 
only from NE Nevada, where it was first collected in 
1985. Flax-leaved sea-blite has stems to 75 cm tall and 
small clusters of green, petal-less flowers borne on the 
petioles of slender, leaf-like bracts. Jim Glennon and I 
found the plant to be locally abundant in 1999 on clay 
terraces in greasewood/flax-leaved rabbitbrush 
communities. The population has a high potential to 
spread to similar habitats in southwest Wyoming riparian 
areas. WF 
Constance’s spring-parsley ( Cymopterus 
constancei) a new species for the West. Ron 
Hartman, curator of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium, first 
became aware of this undescribed member of the 
parsley family (Apiaceae) in the early 1970s while still a 
graduate student studying chromosome numbers of 
western umbels. The species remained unnamed for a 
number of years while Hartman, his students at the 
Rocky Mountain Herbarium, and other workers 
assembled over 80 collections from Wyoming, western 
Colorado, eastern Utah, and northern New Mexico. In a 
recent issue of the journal Brittonia, Hartman named this 
plant Cymopterus constancei in honor of Dr. Lincoln 
Constance of the University of California, Berkeley, a 
long-time student of the Apiaceae. Constance’s spring- 
parsley is a short-stemmed, thick-rooted perennial with 
fern-like foliage, clusters of tiny, white flowers, and 
wing-margined fruits. It can be distinguished from C. 
bulbosus by its oval, short-stalked fruits and mostly 3-5 
veined white bractlets at the base of each fruit cluster. 
In Wyoming, it commonly occurs in sagebrush 
grasslands on eroded hillsides or barren clay slopes in 
the Bighorn, Wind River, Great Divide, and Green River 
basins. Unlike many newly described plants, C. 
constancei is fairly abundant, although it is probably 
undersampled due to its early Spring phenology. WF 
New Host Records of Wyoming Rust Fungi. The 
following species of rust fungi have recently been 
discovered in the state or documented on new host 
plants: 
Puccinia yosemitana on Opal phlox {Phlox 
opalensis), near Cedar Mountain, west of Flaming Gorge 
Reservoir, collected by Walter Fertig 
Puccinia sim ills or\ Porter’s sagebrush {Artemisia 
porteri), in badlands between Riverton and Sweetwater 
Station, collected by John Baxter. 
Uromyces giganteus on Winterfat 
{Krascheninnikovia lanata), hills west of Guernsey, 
collected by John Baxter. 
Puccinia xanthii on Iva xanthifolia, near Sybille 
Creek, southwest of Wheatland, collected by John 
Baxter. JB 
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