Very beautiful, from two to three feet high; with purplish stems, smooth leaves, and flowers an inch long, with a bright scarlet, funnel-shaped corolla, not much two-lipped, the stamens not protruding. These graceful wands of vivid color are conspicuous in the Grand Canyon. P. centranthifòlius, common in California, is similar, the corolla less two-lipped, and has very smooth, thickish leaves. P. Bridgésii, found in Yosemite, is similar, but the corolla is decidedly two-lipped.
Penstemon—P. laetus.
Scarlet Bugler—P. Eatoni.
Yawning Pentstemon
Pentstèmon breviflòrus
Flesh-color
Summer
California
A bushy plant, from two to five feet high, with many smooth, slender branches, terminating in long loose clusters of flowers. The leaves are smooth, rather dark green, the lower ones sharply toothed, and the flowers are three-quarters of an inch long; the corolla flesh-color, tipped with pink, with some purple lines on the lower lip, and some fine white hairs on the upper; the buds yellow, tipped with dark red. These flowers are too dull in color to be effective, but they are sweet-smelling and have ridiculous faces with widely yawning mouths. This is quite common in Yosemite, forming large clumps on open rocky slopes. Indians use the tough stems for making baskets.
Scarlet Pentstemon
Pentstèmon Tórreyi
Red
Summer
Arizona
Exceedingly handsome, with smooth, pale green stems, two feet or more tall, and smooth, rather bluish-green leaves, with slightly rippled edges. The corolla is an inch and a quarter long, vivid scarlet, paler inside, strongly two-lipped, with long, conspicuous stamens, with pale yellow anthers, the style remaining on the tip of the capsule like a long purple thread. This makes splendid clumps of gorgeous color and is common on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
There are a number of kinds of Collinsia, natives of North America, with the leaves opposite or in whorls; the flowers single or in whorls; the calyx five-cleft; the corolla irregular, with a short tube and two-lipped; the upper lip two-cleft and more or less erect, the lower lip larger and three-lobed, the side lobes spreading or drooping, the middle lobe keel-like and folded together and enclosing the two pairs of stamens and the threadlike style, which has a small round-top or two-lobed stigma. The fifth stamen is represented by a minute gland on the upper side of the corolla tube near the base. The form of the flowers somewhat suggests those of the Pea Family. If we pull the lower lip apart we find the odd little crevice in which the stamens are concealed.
Scarlet Penstemon—P. Torreyi.
Yawning Penstemon—P. breviflorus.