Wild P. lin

As you know, I’ve had this fascination with Penstemon linarioides. Maybe it’s because of the fantastic color of the flowers. Maybe it’s because it is so variable, that the colors in different plants vary, the form of the plant and flower stems vary, or that the color of the flowers vary depending on the climatic conditions of the year (the High Country Gardens form bloomed lavender for me this year, while the wild forms from POTSW and Agua Fria were more blue). I think that I like it just because it is so darn cute. It also has evergreen foliage, compact form, and some plants exhibit a nice burgundy winter color. The downside is that it only blooms for a couple of weeks in the spring.

There are other small plants with blue/purple flowers that are similar. I love them all. Veronica tauricula comes to mind:
I certainly have enough photos of this plant. It also forms a creeping mat no more than a couple of inches tall. It also blooms in blue, and it also blooms for only a couple of weeks in the spring, shortly before Penstemon linarioides. I planted Salvia daghestanica last year, and it is blooming this year with dark violet-blue flowers above silvery leaves. These leaves brown out in the winter however, and the flowers are more striking than cute. Still, it is a very fine plant. I wish I could find a place to plant Salvia chamaedryoides, for I love the silvery leaves and the true-blue flowers that repeat during the summer. The plant turns into a tan twiggy bunch in the dormant season, but it just might be worth it. I’m also sorely tempted to try Penstemon procumbens, which has creeping stems and bright blue flowers close to the stems, unlike the short spires of P. linarioides. The plants I’ve seen are less floriferous than P. lin but seem to bloom longer. The common P. strictus is a rather nice purple, but the plants just don’t have the cute factor. Purple rather than the blue of P. lin but a cute bun of foliage and summer-long bloom is Scutellaria resinosa. What a great plant. Unfortunately it doesn’t self-seed for me, and it dies to the ground in winter.

Last year, Will introduced me to a place that he calls “the waterfalls” although I’m certain that there are other waterfalls in New Mexico that could lay claim to the name. It is basically a series of tinajas, formed by water flowing over sandstone. We hiked around the edge of the ravine. On the western slope were a few grey leafed, low-to-the-ground, plants. They looked suspiciously like Penstemon linarioides (!!!), but this being September, there were no blooms to confirm. So feeling like Craig Childs, we jumped into one of the tinajas, scaring some of the fish, and getting a fine coating of algae on us, which dried quickly in the still-warm September sun.



In the last week, since my own P.lin’s were blooming, I figured that the wild ones should be blooming too, or close to it, since they are about 2,000 feet higher in elevation. It was time to take the two hour drive out there. Now, this being a wet year, I expected luxuriant plant growth and lots of stuff blooming at this time of year, but we were disappointed to see almost no flowers in the land as we approached the waterfalls. It started to rain lightly, and having brought no rain gear, we waited in the Forerunner for a while, reading Craig Child’s new book House of Rain.

Finally, we decided it was now or never, and put on what few layers we had and started the short hike. There were a few Indian Paintbrush blooming by the trail, but not much else. The Salix exigua were barely leafing out. There was much more water in the stream this time, so we by-passed the cave and climbed above.
the cave

It looked like there was nothing on the hillside. I saw a few of the plants I thought were P. lin, but several weeks away from blooming. Then I saw it. Wedged into the rocky ledges of the western ledge of the ravine, where the rocks would capture the warmth of the morning sun, were a few bright blue-purple blossoms. I yelled out and snapped a few photos. I could be wrong, but these certainly looked like wild P. linarioides.




Interestingly, the P. lin was only on the western side of the ravine. On the other side, were other small tufts of plants that were blooming, of very similar size and stature, but the flowers were of various shades of pink, some salmon, some purplish, some very pale. Unable to get close enough to identify, Will claimed they were Verbena. I said that they were too small and short to be verbena, and the wrong color. I bet him a beer that they weren’t Verbena. So standing on the edge of the ravine, with my telephoto at maximum, I took a photo. Phlox (nana?). HA-HA! I yelled. “You owe me a bee-ah,” I sang as I snapped a few more pictures. “Not if I push you into the ravine,” Will said.