Montana Field Guide

Pale Yellow Cryptantha is a tuft-forming perennial herb with one to several flowering stems which stand 10-37 cm tall. The stems and leaves are grayish from a dense covering of appressed, somewhat soft, silky hairs and stiffer bristles; the lower surfaces have blister-like pustules, but these may be covered by the hairs, and are scarce or absent on the upper surfaces. The leaves are linear to narrowly spoon-shaped and are 3-11 cm long and 3-15 mm wide. The narrow to somewhat open spike-like inflorescence is 5-30 cm long with small bracts below the individual flowers. Each flower has 5 calyx segments which are separate to their bases, hairy like the leaves, and 5-6 mm long in flower and slightly longer and enclosing the fruit at maturity. The white or pale yellow tubular corolla is 7-10 mm long with five spreading lobes at its top which span 8-12 mm across it. There are five stamens borne on the interior of the corolla tube and a single basal pistil with a long slender style which exceeds the four mature nutlets by 4-8 mm. Both the inner and outer surfaces of the nutlets are wrinkled or adorned with pits, ridges, or tubercles. The scars where the nutlets were connected have constricted openings surrounded by conspicuously elevated margins.

Flowering and fruiting May-June.

Distinguished from other perennial Cryptantha in Montana by having a corolla longer than 6 mm, which is usually longer than the calyx.

Dry, gravelly, calcareous slopes and hills in juniper woodlands.