Native Plants
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
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Tuesday - July 15, 2008
From: New Boston, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Identification
Title: Is Tagetes lemmonii a Texas native?
Answered by: Barbara Medford and Joe Marcus
QUESTION:
Is the Copper Canyon Daisy (Tagetes lemmonii) a native Texas plant?ANSWER:
The USDA Plant Profile shows it as native only to southern Arizona. The City of Austin Native and Adapted Landscape Plants shows it as Non-native, adapted to Austin. It apparently occurs naturally between 4000' and 8000' of altitude in mountain canyons in northern Mexico and southern Arizona. "Vascular Plants of Texas: a Comprehensive Checklist including synonymy, Bibliography, and Index" by Stanley D. Jones, Joseph K. Wipff and Paul M. Montgomery. University of Texas Press, 1997, lists it as "Cultivated" in Texas. Turner, B. L. et al in "Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Texas" list only Tagetes micrantha as does Correll and Johnson "Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas". The term "Copper Canyon" in the common name refers to a region of Mexico in the species' native range. Bottom line: no, it is not a native of Texas.
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