The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Penstemon gracilis
Also called Slender Beardtongue, Lilac Beardtongue, Lilac Flowered Beardtongue, Slender Penstemon
Penstemon gracilis, more commonly the slender penstemon or lilac penstemon, is flowering plant in the veronica family. It primarily grows in the northern Great Plains of the United States and southern Canada.
Within its native range it is grown as a xeriscape plant in gardens and is winter hardy in USDA Zones 3 to 6.
Slender penstemons are native to central and western Canada, the north-central United States, and the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains to northern New Mexico. In Canada they reach the south-westernmost part of Ontario and extend westwards to Alberta and the northeast of British Columbia. In the United States isolated occurrences are recorded in Lake County, Indiana and Kane County, Illinois. However, according to the Flora of North America the Indiana population is a human introduction. The single report of the species in Michigan is in Dickinson County, in the Upper Peninsula. To the west it becomes more common, being reported in approximately the western half of Wisconsin, most of Minnesota, and both the Dakotas. It is only in northwest Iowa and is more common in the northern counties of Nebraska. Almost all the occurrences in Montana are in the east with the exception of Sanders County in the far west of the state. Most of the range is in the northeast of Wyoming and the occurrences in Colorado are at lower elevations in the eastern Rocky Mountains.
Firleaf beardtongue · Stemless beardtongue · Sharpleaf penstemon · Los Alamos beardtongue · Alberta beardtongue · White penstemon · White River Beardtongue · Whitemargin beardtongue · Gilia beardtongue · Penstemon angelicus · Siskiyou beardtongue · Broadbeard beardtongue
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Penstemon gracilis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
