Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
13 × 19 Unframed print (available only at CHOMP in Santa Fe)
Species: Gila Morning Glory (Ipomea giliana)
Location: Gila National Forest, New Mexico
Description: Delicate yet resilient, the Gila Morning Glory is one of the American Southwest’s rarest botanical treasures. Found only within a narrow, two-mile stretch of arid piñon–juniper woodland in southern New Mexico, this elusive wildflower exists on the knife-edge of specificity—thriving only where soil, slope, sunlight, and season align just so. Its pale, trumpet-shaped blooms open like quiet lanterns against the desert’s muted tones, offering a brief and luminous reminder of life’s persistence in harsh places.
This photograph captures the fragile grace of a species whose entire world occupies less land than a small town. Its rarity underscores both the vulnerability and the irreplaceable beauty of Southwest ecosystems, where a single overlooked hillside can hold a story found nowhere else on Earth. The Gila Morning Glory invites us to look more closely, to recognize the extraordinary living in the margins, and to protect the slender threads of habitat on which such wonders depend.
13 × 19 Unframed print (available only at CHOMP in Santa Fe)
Species: Gila Morning Glory (Ipomea giliana)
Location: Gila National Forest, New Mexico
Description: Delicate yet resilient, the Gila Morning Glory is one of the American Southwest’s rarest botanical treasures. Found only within a narrow, two-mile stretch of arid piñon–juniper woodland in southern New Mexico, this elusive wildflower exists on the knife-edge of specificity—thriving only where soil, slope, sunlight, and season align just so. Its pale, trumpet-shaped blooms open like quiet lanterns against the desert’s muted tones, offering a brief and luminous reminder of life’s persistence in harsh places.
This photograph captures the fragile grace of a species whose entire world occupies less land than a small town. Its rarity underscores both the vulnerability and the irreplaceable beauty of Southwest ecosystems, where a single overlooked hillside can hold a story found nowhere else on Earth. The Gila Morning Glory invites us to look more closely, to recognize the extraordinary living in the margins, and to protect the slender threads of habitat on which such wonders depend.