WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This sand-loving species with one to several erect stems 8–20-inches tall has long, lance-shaped, fleshy, tapering leaves with a bluish-waxy covering. Note the congested whorls (not one-sided) clusters of showy, lavender-pink to blue, tubular flowers have no external hair but a golden hairy beardtongue.

FLOWERS: April–June. Clusters of dense whorls in leaf axils with short-stalked, funnel-shaped flowers 5/8–1-inch long (17–23 mm), 2 rounded protruding upper lobes and 3 spreading lower lobes. The sterile stamen (staminode) has a dilated, curved tip densely covered with short, golden hairs. Leaf-like bracts have slender, tapering tips.

LEAVES: Basal leaves absent by blooming. Stem leaves opposite. Blades broad, lance-shaped, 3/4–3 1/2-inches long (2–9 cm), to 1-inch wide (25 mm), with a sharp tapering tip; fleshy, gray-green with a waxy covering (glaucous), sessile (stemless), margins entire.

HABITAT: Deep sand, gravelly soils, roadsides; badlands, desert scrub and grasslands, pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 5,000–8,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, KS, MT, ND, NE, NM, OK, SD, UT, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Our variety has lavender to pink flowers. The look-alike Buckley Penstemon, P. buckeyi, in the eastern and se plains counties, has separated whorls of flowers and lance-shaped to oval leaves and bracts with pointed but not slender, tapering tips.

NM COUNTIES: In western and northern counties in mid-elevation, dry habitats: Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Curry, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Taos, Union.