Montana Field Guide

Perennial with a usually simple or branched caudex. Stems simple, erect, 3–35 cm. Herbage glandular puberulent to tomentose to glabrous. Leaves 1–5 cm long, deeply ternately to pinnately lobed into linear segments, the basal leaves sometimes linear, withering at flowering. Inflorescence a terminal, congested, spicate-capitate, bracteate cyme. Flowers: calyx 3–6 mm long; corolla white, salverform; tube 6–9 mm long, surpassing the calyx; lobes 3–5 mm long; stamens included with filaments shorter than the anthers. Capsule 3–5 mm long with several seeds per locule (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Our plants are subspecies spicata or orchidacea (Brand.) Wilken & R.L. Hartman.

Sandy or gravelly, often calcareous soil of eroding slopes in grasslands, steppe, woodlands; valleys to alpine (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus occidentalis (Pyke et al. 2012).