YELLOW BEARD-TONGUE (Penstemon antirrhinbides, Benth.). 

 Flowers lemon-yellow, showy, the corolla 2-lipped, arched 

 above and widely gaping, an inch long or less, the one sterile 

 stamen densely bearded on one side; on short one-flowered 

 footstalks in leafy panicles. Leaves scarcely half an inch 

 long, narrowly oval. A much- branched, shrubby perennial 

 3 to 5 feet high, blooming in spring on dry hillsides of Southern 

 California. 



The specific name of this Penstemon means "like an Antirr- 

 hinum," the Snapdragon, the large-lipped corolla with its 

 swelling throat suggesting a resemblance, less apparent I 

 think, to the collector in the field than it seems to have been 

 to the describer in his armchair in England. 



Another Penstemon, with yellowish flowers in shape sug- 

 gesting those of the Yellow Beard-Tongue is P. breviflorus, 

 Lindl., which occurs in rocky places of the Yosemite region 

 and along the flanks of the Sierra Nevada. The yellowish 

 corolla is tinged with flesh color, striped inside with pink, the 

 arched upper lip hairy, but the sterile filament is without 

 beard. Doctor Hall states that the tough stems of this species 

 are used by the Indians in the making of storage baskets. 



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