Montane, subalpine.  Moist, rocky meadows.  Summer.
Wildcat Trail, August 28, 2007.

This is such a slender plant that it is easily  overlooked.  The plant grows from one to twenty-four inches tall; its basal leaves are long and narrow and its stem leaves are few, alternate, and short; and flowers have numerous, but very short, rays.  Phyllaries are in several rows, light green, and are purple on the sharp tips.  (See next photograph.)  

Trimorpha lonchophylla is said by Weber to grow in "wet meadows and seepage areas of screes and rocky slopes near timberline", but I found these plants growing at the much lower elevation of 8,400 feet on the rocky, grassy banks of a small stream.  Stanley Welsh (A Utah Flora) says the plant is found in "marshes, stream banks, seeps, perched springs, and wet meadows at 1330 to 2900 meters".

The photographs on this page apparently show the first records of Trimorpha lonchophylla in Montezuma County, Colorado.

This plant was first collected by Thomas Drummond in Saskatchewan and was named Erigeron lonchophyllus by William Hooker in his Flora Boreali-Americana in 1834.  Erigeron expert Guy Nesom renamed it Trimorpha lonchophylla in 1989, putting it in a genus named by Cassini in 1817.  But in the 1990s Nesom reverted to the original "Erigeron" name.   In his words (in an email to me): "I once thought that Trimorpha probably had a different evolutionary background than the rest of Erigeron and thus should have separate recognition at generic rank.  But molecular studies showed that I was wrong about that".   The Erigeron treatment which Nesom authored in Flora of North America, the Synthesis of the North American Flora, A Utah Flora, and Intermountain Flora  accept Hooker's name, "Erigeron lonchophyllus". 

"Lonchophylla[or lonchophyllus]" means "lance-leaved".

Montane, subalpine.  Moist, rocky meadows.  Summer.
Wildcat Trail, August 15, 2007.

Montane, subalpine.  Moist, rocky meadows.  Summer.
Wildcat Trail, August 15, 2007.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Trimorpha lonchophylla (Erigeron lonchophyllus)