Plant Species of the Bright Angel Trail: Powell's amaranth, Amaranthus powellii
See Plant Guide to Bright Angel Trail for an introduction to this page, especially the Introduction To These Species Pages.
Characteristics
Identification status: high confidence. Here is the keying from McDougall:
1b. Not A. palmeri since petioles are too short relative to the leaves 2b. Leaves broader than linear 3b. Stems erect 4a. Plants glabrous ... Amaranthus powellii
The plant in my pictures looks just like the plants in the pictures linked below.
Surprisingly, from a SEINet search, there are just two online vouchers of this species from the Coconino County portion of the Grand Canyon, at Buggeln Tank area, South Rim, elevation 7000 feet, and Grand View Reservoir. Note that there may be additional vouchers at other herbaria not available through SEINet. Phillips et al 1987 also give Toroweap Ranger Station as a location.
There are roughly 60 vouchers in Coconino County, with almost all of them within 20 miles of Flagstaff. Summer annuals like this may be undercollected in more remote places.
First occurrence on Bright Angel Trail: mile 0.00, elevation 6845 feet (2086 m).
Number of plants along Trail: at least 20 plants were found in at least 2 different locations in September 2006. No plants were found in September 2007 due to the lack of rainfall.
Pictures
From 14 September 2006, mile 0.00:
References
See Resources for Grand Canyon Flora for further information on most of these references. Entries in the second column are either the name used in that source or a page reference. The name is linked to online pages when available. If a given reference does not contain this taxon, the entry is either left blank or contains a hyphen.
| Family | Amaranthaceae |
|---|---|
| Scientific Name | Amaranthus powellii |
| 1987 Grand Canyon Flora Name | Amaranthus powellii |
| 1987 Grand Canyon Flora page | 22 |
| SEINet Image Page | Amaranthus powellii |
| USDA Plants | Amaranthus powellii ssp. powellii |
| Flora of North America | Amaranthus powellii |
| Jepson Manual for California treatment | Amaranthus powellii |
| Jepson Manual illustration page | 137 |
| Kearney and Peebles Name | Amaranthus powellii |
| Kearney and Peebles Page # | 267 |
| Vascular Plants of AZ name | |
| Vascular Plants of AZ volume: page | |
| Huisinga et al 2006 name | - |
| Huisinga et al 2006 page numbers | - |
| Epple Name | - |
| Epple description page # | - |
| Epple pix # | - |
| McDougall 1964 name | Amaranthus powellii |
| McDougall 1964 page # | 84 |
| Brian 2000 Name | |
| Phillips 1979 name | - |
| Phillips 1979 page # | - |
| Stockert 1967 name | - |
| Stockert 1967 page # | - |