Native range
Native plants of Colorado
83 wild species and 16 plant groups in the BloomsEye library grow wild somewhere in Colorado, read from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS. The 65 garden forms of them are listed apart below, each naming its wild parent.
Showing 1 to 60 of 99 plants
How this list is made
Derived from each plant's native-range record, checked against Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS with every decision on a ledger; Colorado is read off the record's own range, and the order is how many of the state's counties record each plant, as stored in the BloomsEye library, which was written with AI assistance. Of these 99 plants, 88 have been checked against outside sources; the rest have not been checked yet, and each plant's own page says which. The cards are AI-generated illustrations.
Range data from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 4.0, adapted) and USDA PLANTS. How the native range is credited.
Foliage
Foliage
Foliage
FoliageRecorded across Colorado
How many of the state's 64 counties record each wild species growing wild, from USDA PLANTS: a plant recorded in many counties is widespread in Colorado; one recorded in few may be local, or simply under-recorded. A county's absence is not evidence a plant is absent. 78 of the wild species carry a county record here.
- Rubber Rabbitbrush
- Chokecherry
- Common Blue Grama Grass
- Prairie Junegrass
- Potentilla
- Showy Milkweed
- Western Serviceberry
- Golden Currant
- Quaking Aspen
- Creeping Oregon Grape
- Alderleaf Mountain Mahogany
- False Solomon's Seal
- Tufted Hairgrass
- Prairie Smoke
- Red Elderberry
- Redosier Dogwood
- Rocky Mountain Penstemon
- Sulfur Flower Buckwheat
- Sunflower
- Kinnikinnick
- Mexican Hat
- Nodding Onion
- Alkali Sacaton
- Sideoats Grama
- Switchgrass
- Little Bluestem
- Dotted Blazing Star
- Idaho Fescue
- Douglas Fir
- Purple Prairie Clover
- Buffalograss
- Wild Bee Balm
- Colorado Blue Spruce
- Common Blanketflower
- Smooth Blue Aster
- Common Black-Eyed Susan
- Desert Four O'Clock
- Indiangrass
- Apricot Lisianthus
- Blue Lisianthus
- Cream Lisianthus
- Lisianthus
- Picotee Lisianthus
- Pink Lisianthus
- Rose Lisianthus
- White Lisianthus
- Great Blue Lobelia
- Lady Fern
- Swamp Milkweed
- Blackfoot Daisy
- Bunchberry
- Smooth Sumac
- Spotted Joe Pye Weed
- Common Snowberry
- Purple Poppy Mallow
- Butterfly Weed
- Common Hackberry
- New England Aster
- Common Sneezeweed
- Eastern Red Cedar
- Leadplant
- Long-Beaked Sedge
- Apache Plume
- Cardinal Flower
- False Sunflower
- Prairie Dropseed Grass
- Anise Hyssop
- Chocolate Flower
- Firecracker Penstemon
- Paper Birch
- Purple Lovegrass
- Sea Thrift
- Aromatic Aster
- Brown-Eyed Susan
- Chives
- Golden Columbine
- Purple Coneflower
- Sensitive Fern
Garden forms of Colorado natives
65 garden forms, each a named selection of a species that grows wild in Colorado and each naming its wild parent. A garden form is not the wild plant, so it is listed here and never counted above.
- Abbotswood
- Alma Pötschke
- Alpine Carpet Juniper
- Aquavita Juniper
- Arctic Fire Red Twig Dogwood
- Arctic Fire Yellow Dogwood
- Athena Gold False Sunflower
- Autumn Beauty
- Autumn Colors
- Baby Blue
- Blackhawks Big Bluestem
- Blackjack Gold Black-Eyed Susan
- Blaze
- Blonde Ambition Blue Grama Grass
- Blue Arrow Juniper
- Cherry Brandy
- Claire Grace
- Coconut Lime
- Denver Daisy
- Deschampsia Goldtau Grass
- Fat Albert
- Giant Sunflower
- Globe Blue Spruce
- Goldfinger
- Goldilocks
- Green Jewel
- Gro-Low Fragrant Sumac
- Happy Face Yellow
- Heavy Metal
- Hoopsii
- Indian Summer
- Lemon Queen
- Lemony Lace Elderberry
- Magnus
- Mammoth
- Mango Tango
- McKay's White
- Montgomery
- Moulin Rouge
- New England Aster 'Barr's Pink'
- New England Aster 'Harrington's Pink'
- Northwind
- October Skies
- Orange Whisper
- Pink Beauty
- Pink Double Delight
- Pink Whisper
- PowWow Wild Berry
- Prairie Sun
- Purple Dome
- Raydon's Favorite
- Red Ace
- Regent Serviceberry
- Ring of Fire
- Shenandoah
- Skyrocket Juniper
- Snow Flurry
- Soraya
- Strawberry Blonde
- Tangerine
- Teddy Bear
- Toto Gold
- Twilight Zone
- Velvet Queen
- White Swan
Plant groups native to Colorado
16 plant groups sold under one name whose wild species grow in Colorado; the count beside each is how many of its wild species the record finds in the state.
Keep exploring
Growing natives in Colorado
This list is the library's cut of Colorado's flora, not a planting guide. For sources, plant sales and local advice, Colorado has its own native plant society, the Colorado Native Plant Society, and its extension office, Colorado State University Extension; both are linked below and neither is connected to BloomsEye.
Native to your own county
This page is the whole state. In the free garden planner, enter your ZIP and Garden Check lists these same plants for your location, marks the ones recorded growing wild in your county, and places any of them in your plan; its Browse tab answers for any of the 65 states, provinces and territories with no account.
Design your garden
Drop plants onto a 3D plan, see how they fill in, and watch the whole garden bloom across the year.