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Western polemonium

Polemonium occidentale

Also called Western Jacob's Ladder

Western polemonium
Photo: Teresa Prendusi, Public domain
Family
Polemoniaceae (Polemoni family)
Grows as
Perennial
Water
Likes moisture
Native range
W. Canada to W. & WC. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate

About

Polemonium occidentale is a species of flowering plant in the phlox family known by the common names western polemonium and western Jacob's-ladder. There are two subspecies. The common ssp. occidentale is native to western North America from British Columbia to Colorado to California, where it can be found in moist areas of many habitat types, including meadows and woodlands. There is also a rare subspecies, ssp. lacustre, which is known only from a total of three counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and is found only in white cedar swamp habitat there.

This is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing an erect stem up to one meter tall. The leaves are located along the stem, each divided into many small lance-shaped leaflets. The inflorescence is an open, elongated array of several bell-shaped, five-lobed flowers each up to 1.5 centimeters long.

Other Polemonium plants

Tall Jacob's-ladder · Northern Jacob's-ladder · Brandegee's Jacob's-ladder · Jacob's Ladder · Moving polemonium · Royal Jacob's-ladder · Mason's Jacob's-ladder · Rocky Mountain Jacob's-ladder · Mount Eddy Jacob's-ladder · Elegant Jacob's-ladder · Skypilot · Towering Jacob's-ladder

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Polemonium occidentale 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.

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