WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With a variety of flower colors, this 8–32-inch tall plant has erect, smooth to short-hairy stems with flowers along one side. Blooms vary from deep-purple to light-blue or lavender to pink or white. Note the minutely hairy or hairless stems, the hairless, inflated flower tube with red guidelines, and hairless, white staminode (beardtongue).

FLOWERS: June–September. Wand-like spikes along one side of stem have tight clusters of 2–5 flowers, each 5/8–1 inch long (15–28 mm), inflated throat with red guidelines especially noticeable on white flowers; upper lip projects forward with upturned lobes; lower lip bends downwards with 3 lobes, often with a few white hairs scattered along the base; stamens hairless; staminode (sterile stamen) white, hairless, tip slightly dilated.

LEAVES: Basal leaves often absent at blooming. Stem blades opposite, sessile (no stems), linear to narrowly lance-shaped, 5/8–1 1/2-inches long (15–25 mm), 1/8–3/8-inch wide (3–10 mm), margins entire, surface minutely hairy.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, clay soils, roadsides, mountain meadows; pinyon-juniper, ponderosa woodlands.

ELEVATION: 6,100–9,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The widespread var. virgatus has minutely hairy foliage; var. asa-grayi, uncommon in the no. mountains, has smooth hairless foliage. The rare, but locally common, New Mexico Penstemon, P. neomexicanus, in the Sacramento and Capitan mts., has larger flowers with more hair on the lower lobes and smooth, hairless stems and leaves. White (Redline) Penstemon, P. albidus, in the ne. plains counties, has glandular hairs covering the flower inside and out.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in mountainous of western 2/3 of NM in mid-elevation habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Grant, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Otero, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, Santa Fe, San Miguel, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Valencia.