Montana Field Guide

Perennial from a simple or few-branched caudex. Stems erect, simple, 3–30 cm. Herbage glabrous below, glandular-pubescent above. Leaves: the basal petiolate, the blades oblanceolate, 1–4 cm long; cauline leaves opposite, 1 or 2 pairs, lanceolate, sessile, 5–12 mm long. Inflorescence a terminal, secund raceme of 4 to 10 solitary flowers in axils of paired bracts. Flowers: calyx 3–6 mm long with 5 lobes ca. as long as the tube; corolla white and lavender, 9–13 mm long, tubular, bilabiate, the 5 lobes nearly equal; stamens 4; stigma capitate. Capsule ovate, 6–9 mm long (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Granitic soil of open forest, meadows, rock outcrops, most common in whitebark pine or subalpine larch forests; subalpine, 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 bifarius, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus occidentalis, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014).