Ephedra issues
There's a place I often run past where Ephedra torreyana E. viridis, and E. cutleri all grow together in prolific abundance. I've read a little recently about the debate over whether E. viridis and E. culteri should be considered different species, or whether E. culteri should be sunk to rank E. viridis var. viscida. I don't have a horse in that race, and without seeing genetic data I'm unlikely put a lot of money on one. I'll refer to E. cutleri here by specific rank, because that aligns with iNatuarlist's taxonomy. Anyway, I finally stopped to take a good look at them today.
At first glance, E. viridis and E. cutleri look very distinct. I mean, this is E. cutleri, and this is E. viridis.
What I'm calling E. cutleri spreads rhizomatically in moderately dense aggragations over areas larger that can be 1,000 square meters. It's stems show little branching above ground, stand fairly vertical and are genearlly around 30 cm tall, and sometimes quite a bit shorter, and the amount of above-ground woody growth is rather limited. It can reasonably be described as grass-like.
E. veridis on the other hand, is more shrub-like. It often shows a lot of above-ground woody growth, with quite a bit of branching, and it's not uncommon to find individuals 150 cm tall or more. Also, while it can be difficult to tell whether a particularly bushy one might be spreading some underground, it's unusual to find them covering more than 5-10 square meters.
And then I came across this ephedra and got confused. It appears to be spreading below ground with rhizomes like E. cutleri, but the above ground growth habit looks much more like E. torreyana, though honestly throughout this rather large patch it pretty well grades from one form to the other. So now I'm wondering, are they different species? And if they are, do they hybridize? Incomplete reproductive barriers are definitely a thing, so maybe?
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