From Blue to Purple 



Hairy Beard-Tongue 



(Pentstemon hirsutus) Figwort family 

 (P. pubescens of Gray) 



Flowers — Dull violet or lilac and white, about i in. long, borne in a 

 loose spike. Calyx 5-parted, the sharply pointed sepals over- 

 lapping ; corolla, a gradually inflated tube widening where the 

 mouth divides into a 2-lobed upper lip and a 3-lobed lower 

 lip ; the throat nearly closed by hairy palate at base of lower lip ; 

 sterile fifth stamen densely bearded for half its length ; 4 

 anther-bearing stamens, the anthers divergent. Stem : 1 to 3 

 ft. high, erect, downy above. Leaves : Oblong to lance shape, 

 upper ones seated on stem ; lower ones narrowed into petioles. 



Preferred Habitat — Dry or rocky fields, thickets, and open woods. 



Flowering Season — May — July. 



Distribution — Ontario to Florida, Manitoba to Texas. 



It is the densely bearded, yellow, fifth stamen (pente = five, 

 stemon = a stamen) which gives this flower its scientific name and 

 its chief interest to the structural botanist. From the fact that a 

 blossom has a lip in the centre of the lower half of its corolla, 

 that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity 

 for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen 

 would be only in its way, an encumbrance to be banished in time. 

 In the figwort, for example, we have seen the fifth stamen reduced, 

 from long sterility, to a mere scale on the roof of the corolla tube ; 

 in other lipped flowers, the useless organ has disappeared ; but in 

 the beard-tongue, it goes through a series of curious curves from 

 the upper to the under side of the flower to get out of the way 

 of the pistil. Yet it serves an admirable purpose in helping close 

 the mouth of the flower, which the hairy lip alone could not ade- 

 quately guard against pilferers. A long-tongued bee, thrusting 

 in his head up to his eyes only, receives the pollen in his face. 

 The blossom is male (staminate) in its first stage and female 

 (pistillate) in its second. 



While this is the beard-tongue commonly found in the 

 Eastern United States, particularly southward, and one of the 

 most beautiful of its clan, the western species have been selected 

 by the gardeners for hybridizing into those more showy, but often 

 less charming, flowers now quite extensively cultivated. Several 

 varieties of these, having escaped from gardens in the East, are 

 locally common wild. 



The Large-flowered Beard-tongue (P. grandiflorus), one of 

 the finest prairie species, whose lavender-blue, bell-shaped corolla 



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