Lowly Penstemon
Penstemon humilis Nutt.
A perennial plant with stems clumped
together between 4- 20 inches tall and topped with small bluish-purple, tubular
blossoms. Its flowering stems are between 5
and 35 cm tall. It is slender in appearance, and has many sterile stems at the
base. It may appear to be somewhat matted. The leaves are both
basal and on the stems. The basal leaves are 2-5 cm in length, entire, petioled
and elliptic in shape. The cauline leaves are much shorter, sessile, and
clasping. They are narrowly lanceolate in shape. The inflorescence is glandular,
and consists of 2-9 several-flowered verticillasters which are open below and
more crowded above. . The corolla is a bright blue to blue-violet in color with
a lighter throat containing purplish guide lines. They are 1.0 cm to 1.7 cm in
length. The corolla is definitely two-lipped, the lips moderately spreading. The
corolla is glandular outside. They flower during June and July. Ranges from the
sagebrush valleys and pinyon-juniper wooded foothills to open timbered slopes, and mountain ridge, from foothill to the
timberline. It is often found associated with sagebrush,
juniper, and ponderosa pine. Nuttall reported the Lowly Penstemon in the Rocky
Mountains, on hills in what is now southwest Wyoming and southeast Idaho.