Description: bristly mousetails, Myosurus apetalus var. montanus, Nevada, Pine Nut Mountains, Hot Springs Mountain, Carson Valley drainage, elevation 1449 m (4755 ft). When mousetails are growing in open desert, you know it has been a wet year. Usually these relatives of buttercups are found in moister habitats. In North America this species is found at middle to subalpine elevations from southwestern Canada southward through most of the western United States. As the scientific name suggests, the petals are small, inconspicuous, fall off early, and usually seem to be missing. The other variety of the species, var. apetalus, is found in similar habitats in Chile and Argentina. There are a bunch of species with similar "amphitropical" distributions in North and South America, and most of them are annuals of moist to wet habitats with small light seeds. Most likely their ancestors were transported occasionally between the two areas in the past by migrating waterfowl. Date: 19 April 2017, 15:02. Source:
bristly mousetails, Myosurus apetalus var. montanus. Author:
Jim Morefield from Nevada, USA. Camera location
39° 05′ 37.32″ N, 119° 43′ 12.83″ W View all coordinates using:
OpenStreetMap 39.093700; -119.720231.
