Semi-desert. Sandy openings. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 8, 2007.

This dainty beauty can grow branched to about ten inches tall but often remains unbranched and two-to-five inches tall.  The plant is very difficult to find and, in fact, these are the first published photographs of it in Colorado.  It had never been found in the state until Marion Rohman and my wife, Betty, independently spotted it within three days of each other in several locations within ten miles of each other.  Almost all plants found were just an inch or two tall.  The flower opens around mid-morning; plants are, therefore, even more difficult to find before that time.

The genus was named by Elmer Wooton and Paul Standley and this species was at first named Gilia sparsiflora by Alice Eastwood in 1902 from a specimen she collected in California 1899.  It was renamed Eriastrum sparsiflorum by Herbert Mason in 1945.

Semi-desert. Sandy openings. Spring.
Hovenweep National Monument, Utah, May 17, 2007.

These photographs show E. sparsiflorum in eastern Utah where it has seldomly been recorded.  It is most commonly found in the far western states and in a few far western Utah counties; it is not found in New Mexico or Arizona.

Semi-desert. Sandy openings. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 8, 2007.

Semi-desert. Sandy openings. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 8, 2007.

All the above photographs show just one flower on each plant with a relatively slender swelling of the ovary below the petals.  The photograph at left shows plants maturing with, from left to right, an increasing number of flowers clustered together and swelling the floral area.