Rare Species Guide

  Synonyms

Claytonia caroliniana var. lewisii, Claytonia caroliniana var. spatulifolia

  Basis for Former Listing

Claytonia caroliniana (Carolina spring beauty) is distributed in the Appalachian Mountains from northern Georgia through New England; in the northern portions of the Great Lakes states; in the northwest corner of Arkansas; and from southwestern Newfoundland across southern Quebec and Ontario (Davis 1966; Kartesz 2010). In Minnesota, C. caroliniana is fairly narrowly distributed within 30 miles of Lake Superior. There is one historic outlier twice that far inland, an 1893 collection from Tower, Minnesota. Claytonia caroliniana was listed as a state special concern species in 1984.

  Basis for Delisting

When C. caroliniana was designated a special concern species, this small woodland plant was believed to be largely restricted to old-growth northern hardwood forests along the North Shore of Lake Superior. While the species' range is limited to extreme northeastern Minnesota, targeted rare plant surveys over the past two decades have resulted in the discovery of many more populations in a broader range of forested habitats. Claytonia caroliniana is now known to be more common and widely distributed in Minnesota than was formerly believed. Claytonia caroliniana was delisted in 2013.