Family: Polemoniaceae,
Phlox
Genus: Polemonium
Description
General: low perennial from a stout taproot and much-
branched, sometimes elongate root crown, up to 20 cm tall,
sticky with dense, stalked glands or glandular-long-hairy,
and strongly foul-smelling.
 Leaves: mainly basal plus about 2 alternate, up to 15 cm
long, the rather short stalk with a conspicuously expanded
and paper-textured, persistent base. Leaflets numerous,
crowded, mostly or all 2- to 5-cleft to the base or nearly so,
thus apparently whorled, the individual segments broadly
ovate or obovate, 1.5-6 mm long and 1-3 mm wide.
 Flowers: several in a dense, rounded cluster, usually
elongating a little in fruit, Calyx 7-12 mm long at flowering,
the 5 narrow, pointed lobes shorter than the tube. Corolla
blue, more or less funnel-shaped, 17-25 mm long, longer
than wide, often very conspicuously so, the 5 lobes shorter
than the tube. Stamens distinctly shorter than to
sometimes nearly equaling the corolla.
Flowering time: July-August.
 Fruits: capsules, 3-celled, enclosed by the calyx.
Distribution
Open, rocky places at high altitudes in the mountains,
commonly above timber line, in w. and c. parts of MT. Also
from s.w. Alberta to WA, OR, NV and n. NM. |
|
|
|
(click on image for full size)
|
