December 2012 Number 1 - Utah Native Plant Society

Calochortiana December 2012 Number 1
Figure 7. Chihuahuan Desert habitat of Allium bigelovii
in Greenlee County, Arizona.
bigelovii include, from southeast to northwest, Tonto
Basin (Crooks s.n. 1939 ARIZ); Verde Formation -
Verde Valley (Morefield 1324 ATC; Lambreschte 30
ATC; Haskell & Deaver 2449 MNA; Wetherill s.n.
MNA); Rock Springs beds - Table Mountain (Kierstead
80-1 ATC); Milk Creek beds - Walnut Grove (Palmer
532 NY); Burro Creek (Crooks s.n. 1938 ARIZ; Darrow
10906 ARIZ; Butterwick 4504 ASU; Anderson 2008-07
ASU; and Chapin Wash Formation - Anderson Mine
(Otton 1981) (Butterwick 6165 ASU; Anderson 2008-03
ASU [Appendix 1]). These disjunct localities brought
the Chihuahuan Desert species, Allium bigelovii, into
the Sonoran Desert of west central Arizona as far west
as Burro Creek, Mohave County (Figures 8, 9). Allium
bigelovii is rarer in Arizona than previously thought. It
is now known from approximately eight to ten localities
(some collections from the Verde Valley have vague
locality data on the herbarium labels). Because it occurs
throughout southwestern New Mexico and is “…occasionally
abundant…” there (Sivinski 2003), A. bigelovii
is not a rare species overall.
Allium parishii is a rare Mohave Desert species from
California with peripheral localities in western Arizona
at the eastern edge of its range (Figure 10). The type
collection of A. parishii is from Cushenbury Springs,
San Bernardino County, CA (S. B. Parish 1344 NY)
(Watson 1882). A recent review of Allium parishii by
White (2005) documented its current range and status.
In California it primarily occurs in the San Bernardino
Mountains (San Bernardino County), Little San Bernardino
Mountains (Riverside County) and eastward into
Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP). White (2005) recommends
CNPS List 1B status. Its range in Joshua Tree
National Park has recently been expanded by T. La
Doux, botanist at JTNP (pers. comm. 2008).
In Arizona, Allium parishii was once known only
from an historic collection by Marcus Jones in 1903
Figure 8. Sonoran Desert habitat of Allium bigelovii on
lacustrine habitat at Burro Creek, Mohave County, Arizona,
(westernmost occurrence).
Figure 9. Close up of Allium bigelovii at Burro Creek.
(Jones s.n., POM) from the Chemehuevi Mountains
(Figure 11) which are now identified as the Mohave
Mountains just east of Lake Havasu City, Mohave
County. In 2005, students from Northern Arizona University
made Allium collections in the Mohave Mountains.
These collections were originally labeled as Allium
atrorubens (Aamodt 9 ATC) and A. nevadense
(Dow 13 ATC), but I subsequently identified them as A.
parishii. These collections of Allium parishii were thus
from the same mountain range as the historic Jones collection,
but they included specific GPS locality data. In
2008 I relocated A. parishii in this area (Figure 12) and
recorded habitat data, associated species, and GPS locations
(Anderson 2008-05 ASU [Appendix 1]). Interestingly,
the two sites I recorded were only a mile apart but
the plants grew on soils from different geological substrates:
granite at Scott’s Well (Figure 13) and metamorphic
gneiss near Arrastra Well (Figure 14). Also, the
former site contained a diverse Sonoran/Mohave desert
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