''Amsonia kearneyana'' is a rare species of flowering plant in the

dogbane family Apocynaceae (from ''Apocynum'', Greek for "dog-away") is a family of flowering plants that includes trees, shrubs, herbs, stem succulents, and vines, commonly known as the dogbane family, because some taxa were used as dog poison Members of the ...

known by the common name Kearney's bluestar. It is native to

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, where there is only one native population in the

Baboquivari Mountains Baboquivari may refer to: * 2059 Baboquivari, a near-Earth asteroid * Baboquivari Peak Wilderness, a protected area in the U.S. state of Arizona * Baboquivari National Forest Baboquivari National Forest was established as the Baboquivari Forest R ...

Pima County Pima County ( ) is a county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,043,433, making it Arizona's second-most populous county. The county seat is Tucson, where most of the population ...

. There may also be a population just south of the border in

Sonora, Mexico Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into 72 municipalities; the ...

.The Nature Conservancy
/ref> The plant was federally listed as an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

in 1989.USFWS
Determination of ''Amsonia kearneyana'' to be an endangered species.
''Federal Register'' January 19, 1989. At that time the global population of the plant was made up of eight individuals in a riparian canyon. Since that time the plant has been manually propagated in an attempt to increase its numbers. Threats to the tiny native population include

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

from

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

activity and

flash flood A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing o ...

s in the river canyon. Many of the plants cannot reproduce because their seeds are sterile and nonviable, but this is probably due to

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

predation Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...

on the seeds as they develop.''A. kearneyana''.
Arizona Game and Fish Dept. Heritage Data Management System. This is a perennial herb growing from a thick root in rocky, cobbly

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

soils. It produces up to 50 hairy stems reaching up to in height, forming a hemispherical clump which may be nearly across. The lance-shaped leaves are up to long and wide. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

bears clusters of white flowers each long. The corolla is tubular opening into a flat face with short, rounded lobes. The fruit is a follicle which may be 10 centimeters in maximum length. It contains relatively large seeds which measure about long and wide. The land in the area is stewarded by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (Buenos Aires NWR) provides of habitat for threatened and endangered plants and animals. This refuge, in Pima County, Arizona, was established in 1985. Natural history The semidesert grassland supports the r ...

, and the Tohono O'odham Nation. The plant occurs at between

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

s. Its habitat is made up of riparian vegetation surrounded by

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizona ...

scrub, in a transition between Madrean woodlands and

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean c ...

. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

and

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

are in honor of

Thomas Henry Kearney Thomas Henry Kearney (27 June 1874 – 19 October 1956) was an American botanist and agronomist known for his work on cotton and date palm breeding, plant taxonomy, and the flora of Arizona. Kearney was born on 27 June 1874 in Cincinnati, Ohio. ...

, a botanist who specialized in plants of the American Southwest.

References

External links

USDA Plants Profile
{{Taxonbar, from=Q4748802 kearneyana Flora of Arizona Flora of Sonora Plants described in 1928