SCARLET BUGLER (Penstemon centranthifolius, Benth.). 

 Flowers bright scarlet, tubular, an inch long or more, borne in 

 showy, narrow panicles a foot or even 2 feet long. Leaves 

 opposite, thick, and mostly without footstalks, the upper clasp- 

 ing the stem by their heart-shaped bases. A stout, smooth 

 perennial, 2 to 4 feet high, stems and bluish-green foliage cov- 

 ered with a dense "bloom." Common in open ground, on 

 dry hillsides and on mountain slopes from Monterey southward 

 in California and eastward to Arizona, flowering from Febru- 

 ary till June. 



The slender flowers of the Scarlet Bugler suggest the trum- 

 pets of the Coral Honeysuckle, and tempt people with limited 

 botanical knowledge to call them honeysuckle. They make a 

 blaze of color in the mountains in spring and early summer, 

 and few flowers are better known. Bees are their persistent 

 visitors, and also humming birds whence another common 

 name sometimes heard, Humming-bird's Dinner Horn. In 

 the Sierra Nevada, including the Yosemite region, another 

 scarlet-flowered species somewhat resembling this is found 

 Penstemon Bridgesii, Gray. The corolla of this is distinctly 

 "2-lipped, and the plant is not glaucous. 



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