Blue Hole Cienega is a 116-acre wetland below Blue Hole Spring in Santa Rosa, Guadalupe County, New Mexico. Low-elevation, alkaline cienegas are created by spring seeps that saturate surface and subsurface soils over a large area supporting a lush wet meadow. Cienegas are probably the rarest and most endangered ecosystems in the arid southwest. In 2005, the NM Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department – Forestry Division purchased Blue Hole Cienega with funding from the NM Department of Transportation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. This habitat is a nature preserve for a large population of the federally threatened Pecos sunflower, state-endangered Wright’s marsh thistle, and a few state-endangered Great Plains lady-tresses orchids. It is significantly threatened by dense stands of non-native Russian olive and salt cedar trees.