WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With single to multiple stems, this 12–32-inch tall plant can blanket mountain meadows and forest openings with spikes of intense-blue to royal-purple tubular flowers. Note the one-sided clusters, hairless stems and flowers, and lower lip with three deeply notched lobes.

FLOWERS: June–August. Dense, one-sided spikes with tight clusters of 1–3 flowers, 3/4–1 1/4-inches long (18–32 mm); upper lip has 2 lobes that project forward; lower lip has 3 lobes bend downward; inflated throat opens to expose 4 fertile stamens with anthers with long, shaggy white hairs, and 1 sterile staminode (beardtongue) with a dilated tip having few to no hairs.

LEAVES: Opposite. Blades narrow, lance-shaped, 2–6-inches (5–15 cm) long, to 3/4-inch (20 mm) wide, smooth, margins entire. Basal and lower stem leaves on short stems (petioles), upper leaves smaller, sessile, linear, often folded along midrib.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky, limestone soils, roadsides; pinyon-juniper, ponderosa, spruce-fir woodlands.

ELEVATION: 6,500–10,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, UT, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The nearly identical Mancos Beardtongue, P. strictiformis, in the Four Corners, has pale blue to lavender flowers and anthers covered with short, tangled hairs. Sidebells Penstemon,  P. segundiflorus, has one-sided flower stems but the staminode (beardtongue) is densely covered with yellow hairs.

NM COUNTIES: Mountainous western half of NM: Bernalillo, Catron, Colfax, Grant, Los Alamos, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Socorro, Taos, Torrance.