Montana Field Guide

Globe Beardtongue is a glabrous, herbaceous perennial with tufted stems that are 2-6 dm tall and arising from a shallow, branched, woody rootcrown. The narrowly elliptic, basal leaves are up to 15 cm long and have petioles and entire margins. The opposite stem leaves are shorter, more elliptic, and lack petioles. The inflorescence consists of 1-3 dense clusters of short-stalked flowers surrounding the upper portion of the stem at intervals of 1-5 cm. The blue, tubular corolla is 15-20 mm long and is flared and 2-lipped at the mouth. The 5 lance-shaped sepals are 5-8 mm long and usually have broad, white, wavy margins. The anthers are glabrous, and the 2 sacs do not open entirely at their spreading tips.

Flowering at end of July.

The combination of crowded bluish flowers, glabrous inflorescence, and anthers and anther sacs that remain closed at the tips help distinguish this species from others in the area. Penstemon procerus has smaller flowers, and P. rydbergii has anther sacs that open fully. A hand lens may be required for identification.

Moist meadows in the montane and lower subalpine zones.

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus appositus, Bombus auricomus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, Bombus suckleyi, Bombus bohemicus, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Bauer 1983, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch et al. 2012, Pyke et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014, Tripoldi and Szalanski 2015).