A beautiful little shrub, making splendid patches of vivid color on high bare rocks in the mountains, where it is very conspicuous, hanging over the edges of inaccessible ledges. The stems are woody below and very branching, about a foot high, and the leaves are usually toothed, smooth, stiffish, and thickish. The flowers are an inch and a quarter long, with a rather sticky calyx and bright carmine-pink corolla, moderately two-lipped, with a patch of white hairs on the lower lip; the stamens protruding, with conspicuous, white, woolly anthers, and the style remaining on the tip of the capsule like a long purple thread. This is slightly sweet-scented and is common around Yosemite. The alpine form is less than four inches high, with larger, lilac flowers and toothless leaves.
Penstemon cyananthus.
Honeysuckle Penstemon—P. cordifolius.
Pride-of-the-mountain—Penstemon Newberryi.
Bushy Beard-tongue
Pentstèmon antirrhinoìdes
Yellow
Spring
California
This is a rather pretty shrub, about four feet high, with pale woody branches, purplish twigs, and many, small, rich green leaves. The flowers have a glossy, bright green calyx and a yellow corolla, which is three-quarters of an inch long, streaked with dull-red outside and slightly hairy, the sterile stamen hairy and yellow.
Variable Pentstemon
Pentstèmon confértus
Yellow, blue, purple
Summer
Northwest and Cal.
This has a smooth stem and smooth, toothless leaves, but is very variable both in form and color, for the typical plant, from Oregon and the Rocky Mountains, has yellow flowers, but in Yosemite the variety caerùleo-purpùreus always has blue or purple flowers, but the plants vary in general appearance. In good soil, such as the floor of the Valley, the stem is sometimes two feet tall and the flowers are about half an inch long, grouped in whorls along the stem, but at high altitudes the plant shrinks to a few inches in height.
Cardinal Pentstemon
Pentstèmon Párryi
Scarlet
Spring
Arizona