nmrareplants.unm.edu

The New Mexico Rare Plant Strategy List is maintained by the New Mexico Rare Plant Technical Council (NMRPTC). It focuses on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including one lichen. The website's "About the List" page provides further explanation of the list and its scope.

Who Is Behind the List

The list itself is the responsibility of the NMRPTC, a technical council that maintains the Strategy List. The website that publishes it is a joint effort of three partners:

• The New Mexico Natural Heritage Program
• The University of New Mexico Library
• The New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department–Forestry Division's Endangered Plant Program

So the council maintains the list, while the website is created and kept up through the combined work of these three organizations.

What the List Includes

According to the site, the Strategy List is focused on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including one lichen. That count is the figure the website states for the list's coverage; it is not broken down further in the available page content.

Where the List Fits in the Site

The list sits alongside two related resources on the site:

The Strategy List is therefore the inventory behind the conservation strategy: the strategy describes the conservation goal and the partnership approach, while the list identifies the species in scope.

Practical Takeaways

• If you need to confirm which species are covered, start with the searchable Rare Plant List and look up a species by scientific or common name.
• If you need the list's purpose and maintenance details, the "About the List" page is the site's own pointer for "More."
• If you are working on conservation planning rather than species lookup, the Rare Plant Conservation Strategy page describes the collaborative approach and its aim of avoiding federal listing.

One limit worth noting: the available page content gives the total count (235 species, including one lichen) but does not itemize the list or spell out the criteria used to decide inclusion. For those details, the "About the List" page is the place the site directs readers.

The New Mexico Rare Plants website (nmrareplants.unm.edu) is an informational resource on rare and endangered plants in New Mexico, maintained through a collaboration of the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program, the University of New Mexico Library, and the NM Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department–Forestry Division's Endangered Plant Program. It is useful if you want to look up a specific rare species, understand the state's conservation strategy, or learn how the official rare plant list is assembled and maintained.

What the Site Offers

The homepage organizes its content around three main sections, each serving a different purpose:

Rare Plant List

This is the site's core lookup tool. You can browse the list of New Mexico rare plants or search for a specific species using either its scientific name or its common name. If you already know what plant you're researching, this is the fastest entry point.

Rare Plant Conservation Strategy

The strategy section describes the goal of protecting New Mexico's rare and endangered plant species and their habitats. According to the site, the approach relies on collaborative partnerships between stakeholders and interested parties to improve conservation and management—and explicitly aims to avoid federal listing of these species. This section is most relevant if you want to understand the policy and management context rather than a single species.

About the List

This section explains that the New Mexico Rare Plant Strategy List is maintained by the New Mexico Rare Plant Technical Council (NMRPTC). The list focuses on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including one lichen. Use this section to understand the scope and authority behind the list before relying on it.

Who Runs It and Why That Matters

The site is a joint effort across three organizations: the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program, the University of New Mexico Library, and the Forestry Division's Endangered Plant Program within the NM Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department. Because the list itself is maintained by a technical council (NMRPTC) rather than a single agency, the site functions as a shared reference point rather than a regulatory database. For questions of official status or permitting, treat the site as a starting reference and confirm with the relevant agency.

Practical Tips

• Search by either name type. The list supports both scientific and common names, so you don't need the Latin name to begin.
• Check "About the List" first if scope matters. Knowing the list covers 235 species (including one lichen) helps you judge whether a plant you're interested in would appear at all.
• Use the strategy section for context, not species data. It explains conservation goals and partnerships; species-level details live in the Rare Plant List.
• Watch the Current Events area. The homepage also links to rare plant news and field trips, which can be useful for staying current.

The site does not present itself as a pricing or subscription service; it is a public information resource hosted at a university address.

To search for a specific species, open nmrareplants.unm.edu and use the Rare Plant List section, where you can search by scientific or common name. The site is maintained by the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program, the University of New Mexico Library, and the NM Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department–Forestry Division's Endangered Plant Program, so the list is an official reference rather than a casual collection.

Where the Search Lives

The homepage presents the Rare Plant List as one of its main areas, alongside the Rare Plant Conservation Strategy and About the List. The list section is described as a place to "explore our list of New Mexico Rare Plants and search for specific species via their scientific or common name," with a Search Rare Plant List link leading into it.

Two ways to look up a plant

If a common name returns nothing, try the scientific name — common names vary between sources, while the scientific name is the stable identifier used in the list.

What the List Covers

The Strategy List is maintained by the New Mexico Rare Plant Technical Council (NMRPTC) and focuses on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including one lichen. That scope matters when you search: a plant absent from the results may simply fall outside the list's criteria rather than not existing in the state.

The About the List page explains how the list is maintained, which is worth reading before treating a search result as a formal status determination.

Practical Search Tips

• Start with the exact scientific name if you have it; spelling variants are the most common reason a search comes back empty.
• Check the genus spelling against a flora or herbarium record before concluding the species is missing.
• Use the list to confirm whether a species is tracked as rare in New Mexico, then follow links to the Conservation Strategy for context on protection goals.
• The site also has Current Events, Rare Plants in the News, and Field Trips sections if you want broader context beyond a single species lookup.

What This Site Is For

The Rare Plant Conservation Strategy aims to protect New Mexico's rare and endangered plants and their habitats through collaboration among stakeholders, partly to avoid federal listing. Searching the list is therefore a first step — identifying whether a plant is on the state's radar — while the Strategy pages explain what that designation is meant to achieve.

The New Mexico Rare Plant Conservation Strategy aims to protect and conserve New Mexico's rare and endangered plant species and their habitats. It pursues that goal through collaborative partnerships between stakeholders and interested parties, with the aim of improving conservation and management of rare plant species and avoiding federal listing. In short, it is a state-level, partnership-driven framework for keeping New Mexico's rarest plants from needing federal protection.

What the Strategy Is Trying to Achieve

The strategy's stated goal bundles three connected objectives:

• Protect species and habitat. The focus is not only on individual rare plants but on the habitats they depend on.
• Improve conservation and management through collaboration. Stakeholders and interested parties work together rather than in isolation, which is presented as the mechanism for better outcomes.
• Avoid federal listing. Keeping species off the federal endangered species list is an explicit aim of the strategy, framed as a desirable outcome of effective state and partner action.

How It Fits With the Rest of the Website

The strategy is one of three core parts of the New Mexico Rare Plants website, alongside the Rare Plant List and background on how that list is maintained.

The About the List section notes that the Strategy List focuses on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including one lichen. That figure is useful context: the strategy is not an abstract policy statement but is tied to a specific, maintained list of species.

Who Is Behind It

The website itself is a combined effort of the New Mexico Natural Heritage Program, the University of New Mexico Library, and the NM Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department–Forestry Division's Endangered Plant Program. The Strategy List is maintained by the NMRPTC. So the strategy's "collaborative partnerships" language reflects the actual institutional arrangement behind the site and the list.

When This Matters to You

• If you are researching a specific plant, start with the searchable Rare Plant List by scientific or common name, then check whether the species appears on the Strategy List.
• If you want to understand the policy rationale, the strategy page explains why the list exists and what conservation outcomes it is meant to produce.
• If you are a land manager, researcher, or partner organization, the strategy is the reference point for how rare plant conservation and management are coordinated in the state and for the stated preference to avoid federal listing.

The site also links to current events, rare plants in the news, and field trips, which can show the strategy in practice.