Photos: The Rare but Powerful Pecos Sunflower

The threatened Pecos sunflower bathes a pocket of the U.S. Southwest in vibrant color, supporting native pollinators and even fish in wetlands known as ciénegas

• Text and photos by Christina M. Selby
• Conservation
• Mar 26, 2025

A green metallic sweat bee (above left) searches for nectar on a newly opened Pecos sunflower in Blue Hole Ciénega Nature Preserve in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Pecos sunflowers line a spring-fed stream in Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge (above right) in Roswell, New Mexico, where ongoing conservation efforts maintain one of the largest remaining populations of the rare flower.

UNDER A BIG BLUE SKY THAT STRETCHES TO THE HORIZON, a rare species of native sunflower turns acres of saline wetlands into a sea of gold for one month every year.

Unlike other perennial sunflowers, the Pecos sunflower prefers its feet wet and is found only in seven locations in central and eastern New Mexico and western Texas. Its unique habitats—spring-fed wetlands called ciénegas—create oases in otherwise arid landscapes and are rich with sunflower blossoms from early September to early October.

Sunflowers are considered keystone plants, meaning they nurture many different wildlife species. Even in a year with little precipitation, “You can count on sunflower blooms,” says bee biologist Olivia Carril. As other wildflowers begin to fade, the explosion of Pecos sunflowers loaded with pollen and nectar serves as a much-needed late-season feast for native wasps, beetles, butterflies and bees. “Sunflowers are a magnet for both specialist and generalist bees,” Carril says, and “provide some stability for the ecosystem.”

All of these pollinators in turn feed other invertebrates, including many dragonflies and damselflies, says Doug Danforth, author of several field guides on insects of the Southwest. During visits to the ciénegas of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, in 2022, Danforth recorded two species of skimmers for the first time ever in the state: the Antillean saddlebags and the calico pennant. “We have observed many other species there that are rarely seen,” he says.

Benefits continue across the food web. Pecos sunflower seeds fuel bird migrations, especially goldfinches and warblers, and support deer, western harvest mice and even small desert fish such as the endemic Santa Rosa roundnose minnow.

Due to a deluge of threats—groundwater pumping, climate change, development and damage from unmitigated livestock grazing—ciénegas are now among the region’s most endangered ecosystems. “Nearly 90 percent of ciénegas have already been damaged or lost in the Southwest,” says Bob Sivinski, who served as New Mexico’s state botanist for 22 years before retiring in 2011.

He and others have been working to turn that tide. After the Pecos sunflower was listed as a federally threatened species in 1999, Sivinski led the charge through the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department to purchase the 116-acre tract now known as Blue Hole Ciénega Nature Preserve in 2005. Along with the 24,563-acre Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, established 100 miles to the south in 1937, the two areas host some of the largest remaining stands of Pecos sunflowers.

Where the aquifer is still intact, ciénegas can be brought back to life. Restoration efforts—including prescribed burns, invasive species removal and limiting livestock grazing—have helped conserve Pecos sunflower populations. “Ciénega habitats are so rare and threatened,” Sivinski says. But “statutory federal and state protections give this rare sunflower an ability to protect its own endangered habitat.” See more vivid photos in the slideshow at the end of this story.

Planting at Home

While Pecos sunflowers bloom in the fall, other sunflowers blossom as early as June, livening up roadsides, meadows and backyards across the country. Due to its specialized habitat needs and threatened status, the Pecos sunflower is unsuitable for planting at home, but many species are ideal, as long as gardeners keep a couple of tips in mind—opting for plants native to your region and avoiding varieties specially bred as cut flowers, which have reduced pollen. That leaves a long list of sunflowers beneficial to pollinators and appropriate for home planting, including the Lemon Queen (pictured), a naturally occurring hybrid native to parts of the Great Plains; woodland sunflower, native to Eastern Temperate Forests; and Nuttall’s sunflower, native to the Temperate Sierras. Often thought of as weeds, native sunflowers are in fact considered keystone plants by biologists for the large number of wildlife species the plants nurture. In 2021, the National Wildlife Federation’s native plant habitat team compiled the work of scientists identifying top keystone plants for 10 different ecoregions across North America into online lists. While plant species varied by region, some kinds of plants—including native sunflowers—showed up nearly everywhere. Find out which sunflower species and other keystone plants grow in your ecoregion.

Read about Christina M. Selby.