Flora of North America species comparison

Variety pulchellum is the most widespread and common variant of the species. It ranges from south-eastern Alaska and western Canada, to southeastern Manitoba, to Lassen County, California, northern and eastern Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Scattered populations are found in western North Dakota (Burke County) and in western Nebraska (Morrill County). A collection at Fort Lewis, Thurston County, Washington (D. Thysell 705, WTU), may be an introduction.

Relatively small, usually high-elevation plants in southeastern British Columbia, Idaho, western Montana, northeastern Nevada, and western Wyoming have been segregated as var. watsonii. The origin of a similar specimen, supposedly from Mount Arrowsmith on Vancouver Island (collector unknown, UBC) remains to be confirmed. In Montana and northwestern Wyoming, such plants can be easily confused with the sparsely glandular Dodecatheon conjugens, which also has transverse rugose (not smooth or longitudinally wrinkled) connectives.

Plants with leaves to 25 cm wide may be seen along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and in north-central New Mexico; this phase was named Dodecatheon radicatum. Some populations from Alberta (the type location of D. pulchellum) have similar leaves. Plants with yellow pollen sacs occur in some populations on the Great Plains in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, gradually becoming more common eastward. A collection from the Sierra Madre, Durango, Mexico (E. W. Nelson 4780, K, US) is allied to var. pulchellum. Some populations east of the Alaska Range and in adjacent northern Yukon, here assigned to var. pulchellum, have minutely glandular calyces, pedicels, nodes, and uppermost portion of scapes. The taxonomic significance of these plants has not been determined; they may indicate some past introgression with D. frigidum.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Variety shoshonense is found in widely scattered, nearly always alkaline meadows mainly in the valley bottoms of the northern Mojave Desert and the Intermountain West. Populations occur from Inyo and Mono counties, California, across Nevada to western Utah. To the north, it occurs from Malheur County, Oregon, across the Snake River Plain of Idaho to Bannock County, with some populations extending northward in the low valleys of Custer and Idaho counties. Large-leaved plants occur on streamside cliff faces in the Three Forks of the Owyhee area in Oregon. A population from 2800 meters in the House Range in Millard County, Utah (subvar. atwoodii), is here assigned to var. shoshonense. Apparently, the plants are locally abundant at the bases of limestone cliffs.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)