Tassel Flower - Brickellia grandiflora
Bloodgood Spring Trail
Black Range near Kingston
New Mexico, USA
September 8, 2014
We found this Brickellia grandiflora, Tassel Flower, along the old road bed between Bloodgood Spring and the old Bloodgood homestead - half a mile or so south of Kingston - on September 8, 2014. This species was formerly classified as Coleosanthus grandiflorus and as Eupatorium grandiflorum. Its other common names are Large-flowered Brickellbush, Mountain Brickellbush, and Tasselflower Bricklellbush.
This is a western species, being found from the western provinces of Canada south into northern Mexico. The range within the United States is shown to the right, light green means that the species is native and not rare in the particular county. The American Indigenous peoples used this species for medicinal purposes.
The species was first identified by William Hooker and redescribed by Thomas Nuttall. Nuttall was one of the cadre of great American naturalists, publishing in both the fields of botany and ornithology. The specimen shown below was collected by Edgar A. Mearns, in the Huachuca Mountains of Arizona, as part of his work for the International Boundary Commission of the United States and Mexico, on October 17, 1893.
This species was collected by most of the western exploratory expeditions. The specimen sheets read like a who’s who of American Natural History.
