WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Stems grow to 6–19-inches tall, usually in an erect clump erect. Pale lavender to blue flowers shaped like an inflated tube grow in one-sided clusters. Note the short, narrow leaves, glandular-hairy herbage, prominent purple guidelines and white hairs on the lower lip of the flowers, and the beardtongue (staminode) is hairy most of its length and with a yellow tuft at the tip.

FLOWERS: May–August. Clusters with 1–2 flowers along one-side of upper stems; flowers 3/8–3/4-inch long (15–20 mm), the tube abruptly inflates to bell-shaped, opening with 2 lips; the upper lip has 2 petal-like lobes that arch upward; the lower lip has 3 lobes project downward and are lined with white-hairs; the whitish throat has 2 ridges and dark red-purple guidelines; the tip of the staminode (beardtongue) is covered with a tuft of yellow hairs.

LEAVES: Basal and opposite on stem. Blades linear to narrowly lance-shaped, 3/8–1-inch long (1–25 cm), to 1/8-inch wide (1–3 mm); crowded near base, scattered on the stem,  same-sized up the stem; tip pointed, margins entire.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, volcanic soils, roadsides; sagebrush, pinyon-juniper-oak, ponderosa woodlands.

ELEVATION: 4,600–8,400 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 3 varieties with slight differences in NM. The look-alike Crandall’s Penstemon, P. crandallii, in the same habitat, is more mat-forming, has numerous leaves through the flower stem, flowers with a throat that only slightly expands, a beardtongue densely bearded with gold hairs most of its length, and foliage with erect or backward-pointing hairs (use lens).

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in the western half of NM in low- to mid-elevation habitats: Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, McKinley, Los Alamos, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Valencia.