WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Clusters of 2–4 blue flowers grow on one side of stems that reach 10–inches tall. Note the blue flowers have a white throat and a beardtongue with yellow hairs that does not extend outside the throat.

FLOWER: June–August. Clusters of ascending to horizontal flowers with abruptly inflated tubes 5/8–1 1/8-inches long (17–27 mm) that open with 2 hairless lips. Upper lip has 2 lobes bent upwards; lower lip has 3 lobes bent downwards; the throat has dark guidelines, and the sterile staminode (beardtongue) inside the throat is covered with yellow hairs.

LEAVES: Basal rosette usually withered by booming, leaves lance-shaped with stems (petioles) to 1 1/4-inches long (3 cm) and blades to 3-inches long (8 cm). Stem leaves opposite, upper without stems (sessile); blades narrowly lance-shaped to linear, 3/4–3 1/2-inches long (2–9 cm); margins entire, surfaces hairless, slightly waxy.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky, loamy soils, foothills, trailsides, forest openings, meadows; pinyon-juniper, ponderosa-Douglas fir, spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 6,000–10,700 feet.

RANGE: NM.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Two other penstemons in NM have blue flowers and white throats: The flowers of White-throated Penstemon, P. oliganthus in the nw quarter of NM, are drooping to horizontal, only slightly inflated, and have yellow-white hairs on the lower lip and a densely yellow-hairy beardtongue. The flowers of White-faced Penstemon, P. pseudoparvus in the San Mateo and Magdalena mountains of Socorro County, are tubular, slightly flattened, and ascending.

NM COUNTIES: Mountains of central and northern NM  in mid- to high-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Colfax, Mora, Otero, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Taos, Torrance.