Addisonia 31 



(Plate 136) 



PENSTEMON CALYCOSUS 

 Long-sepaled Beard-tongue 



Native of the southeastern Mississippi Valley 

 Family Scrophulariaceae Figwort Family 



Penstemon calycosus Small, Bull. Torrey Club 25: 470. 1898. 



A nearly glabrous herbaceous plant, from a short much branched 

 rootstock sending up several erect or glabrous stems, two to four 

 feet tall, each terminating in a panicle of violet-purple flowers. 

 The leaves are of two types : those of the winter rosette, in summer 

 persisting at the base of the stem, are prevailingly ovate and 

 petioled; those of the stem itself are slightly narrower and sessile, 

 all but the lowermost clasping by a rounded base; all are glabrous 

 or nearly so, green, slightly paler beneath, with irregularly serrate 

 margins. The panicle, less than one third the height of the plant, 

 is rounded-pyramidal, its primary bracts broad and leaf -like; the 

 branching is as in P. Digitalis; its stems, pedicels, and calyces are 

 covered with gland-tipped hairs. The flowers are on pedicels of 

 varying length, but never of more than a half inch. The sepals 

 are linear, nearly one half inch long. The corolla is nearly one and 

 a half inches long, its form nearly as in P. Digitalis, but the throat 

 more gradually inflated, and the lobes less spreading; the corolla 

 externally is violet-purple, within it is paler, and with a few faint 

 darker violet lines on the anterior side ; externally it is finely pubes- 

 cent with gland-tipped hairs, and within, over the bases of the 

 anterior lobes, it is strongly pubescent with white hairs. The 

 stamens are essentially as in P. Digitalis, the anthers being always 

 glabrous. The pistil, capsules, and seeds are nearly as in that 

 species. 



Not only is this one of the largest-flowered of our eastern beard- 

 tongues, but in color it is also one of the most beautiful. The 

 flowers tend to cluster in horizontal tiers. The outer surface of 

 each corolla is a delicate purple-red; often on the lobes of the inner 

 surface this coloring is deepened to violet while the throat within 

 is always pale. The long white hairs just at the mouth show against 

 the shadowed interior. The golden-yellow beard of the sterile 

 filament lies like a tongue against the anterior lip, and arched 

 closely against the posterior side are the violet-grey fertile anthers. 

 A combination of colors, to which our illustration can do but 

 incomplete justice! 



