Clematis bigelovii Torr.:
United States (North America)

United States

Origin: Unknown/Undetermined

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Unknown/Undetermined

Confidence: Confident

Global Range: 9 counties of New Mexico, eastern Arizona

Clematis bigelovii is locally common and is restricted to New Mexico and a few sites in Arizona. Although usually grouped with C. hirsutissima because of its scarcely viny habit, this species appears to represent the extreme expression of clinal variation including C. pitcheri var. dictyota and, at the other extreme, eastern populations of C. pitcheri var. pitcheri ; it might well be treated as C. pitcheri var. bigelovii (Torrey) B.L. Robinson. 

 Clematis palmeri Rose is represented by a small number of specimens from New Mexico and one from eastern Arizona, and its distinctness as a species has been questioned. The few published descriptions scarcely suffice to indicate its distinguishing features and are sometimes at variance with each other and with specimens so identified by R.O. Erickson (1943) or others. Almost all specimens were found where C. bigelovii was reported nearby. Pending further studies, it seems likely that C. palmeri comprises somewhat aberrant specimens of C. bigelovii , C. hirsutissima var. scottii , and/or C. pitcheri var. dictyota , perhaps also some herbarium sheets of flowering and fruiting material inadvertently collected from different species, and/or hybrids involving the species named above in one or more combinations.

Stems erect or sprawling, 0.1-0.6 m, short pubescent-pilose, sometimes sparsely so. Leaf blade 1-2(-3)-pinnate; primary leaflets 7-11, mostly deeply 2-several-lobed, leaflets and larger lobes mostly ovate, 0.8-3.5 × 0.5-1.5 cm (lateral lobes nearly as wide as central portion), thin, not prominently reticulate; surfaces glabrous, somewhat glaucous. Inflorescences terminal, 1-flowered. Flowers broadly urn- to bell-shaped; sepals purple, lanceolate, 1.5-3 cm, margins narrowly expanded distally to ca. 1 mm wide, thin, crispate, tomentose, tips acuminate, spreading, abaxially sparsely pubescent. Achenes: bodies appressed-long-pubescent; beak 2-3 cm, glabrous or inconspicuously appressed-pubescent, sparsely so toward tip.

Comments: Mountain slopes.

Flowering spring-fall. Mountain slopes, moist sites in canyons; 1700-2400 m; Ariz., N.Mex.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: NNR - Unranked

Rounded Global Status Rank: G4 - Apparently Secure

Reasons: New Mexico flora states that species is widespread. Need better documentation to define a single rank.