Plants of Mesa Verde National Park
The 5 plants you can find at Mesa Verde National Park, like the Big sagebrush — sizes, diets, and whether you should worry.
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Plant Big sagebrush
Artemisia tridentata
The silver-leaved, sharp-smelling evergreen shrub of the high desert West, and the main food of the greater sage-grouse nearly all year.
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Plant Fireweed
Chamerion angustifolium
A tall pink-purple wildflower that is often the first color to return to a burned mountainside.
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Plant Two-needle pinyon
Pinus edulis
A short, gnarled pine of the drier Southwest, growing at Mesa Verde, Black Canyon, and Great Sand Dunes, with nuts a jay plants by forgetting them.
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Plant Utah juniper
Juniperus osteosperma
A short, twisted evergreen of dry canyon country, rooting in cracked rock at Mesa Verde, Black Canyon, and the Craters of the Moon lava fields.
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Plant Western wheatgrass
Pascopyrum smithii
A blue-green prairie grass whose underground rhizomes weave a tough sod — the official state grass of North and South Dakota.