In our species, stemless herbs with fibrous roots and 1-flowered scapes; basal, tufted, entire leaves, the upper surface covered with a viscid secretion, to which insects adhere and are caught by the curling of the sensitive leaf margins; calyx 4—5-parted or 2-lipped; corolla sac-like and contracted into a spur.
Leaves pale yellowish-green, 3—7 in a rosette at the base of the scape, greasy to the touch on the upper surface, ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, 1—2 inches long, ¼ as wide. Flowers solitary on a slender scape, violet-purple, nearly ½ an inch broad when expanded, 2-lipped; the upper lip 2-lobed; the lower 3-lobed, larger; the tube gradually contracted into an obtuse or acute nearly straight spur, ⅓ of an inch long.
In wet mossy places, on rocks, or edges of gravelly stream beds throughout the Rockies, at the lower altitudes; the bright little flowers suggesting violets; flowering during June.
a Pinguicula vulgaris L. Butterwort.
b Pentstemon fruticosus (Pursh) Greene. (¾ Nat.)
Large Purple Beard-Tongue.