WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Usually with several smooth to hairy, 4–29-inch tall stems from a rosette of narrow basal leaves, this plant has open clusters of showy, lavender flowers, and often forms colonies. Note the flower clusters grow on one side of the stem and flowers have white hairs on the lower lip, and a “beardtongue” that extends beyond the throat with a curled tip covered with yellow hairs.

FLOWER: May–June. Clusters of 2–5 glandular-hairy flowers on upper stems; lavender to pink, 1–1 1/8-inches long (25–30 mm); flowers shaped like an abruptly inflated tube that opens with 2 lips; the upper lip has 2 lobes, and the lower lip has 3 lobes that bend backwards with white hairs along the base. The throat has purple guidelines and a sterile stamen, or beardtongue, with a curled tip covered with yellow hairs, and that extends beyond the lips. The guidelines and inflated pouch-like interior accommodate bumblebees for pollination.

LEAVES: Basal and opposite on stem. Blades linear,  3/4–4 3/4-inches long (2–12 cm) and 3/16–3/8-inch wide (5–15 mm), tapering to a point, and variable with or without hairs or spaced teeth, but don’t have a waxy-white covering.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky, limestone soils, roadsides; shortgrass prairies, desert scrub and grasslands, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa woodlands.

ELEVATION: 4,000–8,200 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: NM has 43 species of Penstemons. Short-flowered Penstemon, P. ophianthus, in the western NM, is nearly identical but has flowers half as long, 5/8–9/8-inch (14–22 mm). The widespread Fendler’s Penstemon, P. fendleri, nearly statewide in plains and foothills, has broad elliptical basal and stem leaves with a waxy-white covering, and narrow, tubular (not inflated), violet-purple flowers that grow all around the stem, not one-sided.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in central and eastern NM in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, Curry, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Guadalupe, Harding, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Quay, Roosevelt, San Miguel, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Socorro, Torrance, Union.