Observations on the Desert Gypsum Flora of Southwestern Texas and Adjacent New Mexico
- 1 September 1946
- journal article
- research article
- Published by JSTOR in The American Midland Naturalist
- Vol. 36 (2) , 456-466
- https://doi.org/10.2307/2421515
Abstract
The author lists and discusses collections of plants taken from desert gypsum areas principally in Hudspeth, Culberson and Reeves Counties, Texas, and Eddy and Chaves Cos., New Mexico, during parts of the summers and falls of 1942-''45, incl. The collections are summarized in a list of 90 spp. which is followed by an annotated enumeration of 34 spp. presenting a definite and distinctive gypsum florula. Cold-enia hispidissima is found to be as characteristic of desert gypsum as Larrea divaricata is of the adjoining calcareous deserts. In the area studied it also serves as a positive indicator of gypsum in xeric habitats not easily recognized as gypseous. Several previously little-known spp. such as Selinocarpus lanceolatus, Abronia nealleyi, Frankenia jamesii and Nama carnosum are found to be obligate gypsophiles. Limonium limbatum and Pseudoclappia arenaria appear to be halophytic-gypsophiles.This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Timberlines in the Northern Rocky MountainsEcology, 1938
- An Ecological Reconnaissance in the White Sands, New MexicoEcology, 1935