WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This robust plant reaches 6-feet tall with large, broad leaves, yet the reddish-green, tubular flowers are only 3/4-inch long. The blooms may not impress us but bees and other pollinators dive headfirst into the flower’s small opening. Note the stems are glandular hairy and angled.

FLOWERS: June–September. Short-stalked clusters spread along upper stems; flowers an inflated (not constricted) tube, 1/2–3/4-inch long (12–20 mm); tube with 2 erect upper lobes, 2 side lobes and 1 lower lobe bending downward; the sterile filament (staminode) is club shaped, longer than wide.

LEAVES: Opposite on short stems (petioles). Blades lance-shaped, 3–6-inches long (7.5–15 cm), margins irregularly serrated; surfaces hairless except for main veins.

HABITAT: Moist gravel loam soils, meadows, open woods; ponderosa, Douglas fir-aspen, spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 6,200–10,500 feet.

RANGE: Endemic to NM mountains.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Lanceleaf Figwort, S. lanceolata, in no. NM mountains, has a 1/2-inch long (12 mm) flower with a slightly constricted tube and a  fan-shaped sterile filament (staminode) wider than long. The rare Mimbres Figwort, S. macrantha, in sw NM mountains, has bright red flowers. Pineland Figwort, S. parviflora, in sw NM mountains, has green flowers with red tips and leaves with glandular hairy bottoms.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in mid- to high-elevation habitats in NM mountains: Bernalillo, Catron, Dona Ana, Grant, Harding, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Taos, Torrance.