Palmer's Penstemon

Palmer's Penstemon, Penstemon palmeri, is a perennial notable for its showy, rounded flowers, and for being one of the few scented penstemons. The plant, in the family Plantaginaceae, is named after the botanist Edward Palmer. Penstemon is the largest genus of flowering plants endemic to North America. Plants can grow as high as 7 feet. Palmer's Penstemon is native to desert mountains from the eastern Mojave desert in California, to eastern Nevada, northeastern Arizona, and New Mexico, and north through areas in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and eastern Washington. It is a drought-tolerant perennial plant, preferring well draining drier soils and it grows in washes and bajadas, roadsides, canyon floors, creosote bush scrup, and juniper woodlands, from 3,600–7,500 ft. The corolla forms a large pouch, mostly light pink in color but with a few purple lines on the lower insides. The five lobes are also larger than average; two project upwards while the lower three hang down, revealing the five stamens, one of which is covered by prominent, yellowish hairs. Flowers grow in elongated clusters along the upper portion of the tall stems; leaves are mostly towards the base, in opposite pairs an inch or two apart. Flowers all tend to point in the same direction.

These pictures above and below were taken in June of 2008, in Buckhorn Wash, on a trip I took there to image the pictographs in the canyon.

These flowers struck me as being similar to the Minnesota state flower, the Ladies Slipper, and I thought then and still think now that they are one of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen in Utah.