26 

 Penstemon whippleanus Gray 



I. SPECIES INFORMATION 

 A. CLASSIFICATION 



1. SCIENTIFIC NAME: Penstemon whippleanus 



2. COMMON NAME: Whipple's penstemon 



3. FAMILY: Scrophulariaceae 



4. GENUS: According to Cronquist et. al. (1984), 

 Penstemon is a large genus of about 250 species 

 occurring in North America from Alaska and the Yukon 

 Territory to Guatemala, but mostly in the western 

 United States. (Name from the Latin paene , nearly, 

 almost, and the Greek stemon, thread, indicating 

 that the staminode is almost a stamen.) 



5. SPECIES: Penstemon whippleanus from subalpine 

 woodlands and open slopes to timberline and 

 sometimes on alpine tundra, (2000) 2500-3600 meters; 

 southwestern Montana, southeastern Idaho and 

 southern and western Wyoming (Cronquist et al., 

 1984) . 



B. PRESENT LEGAL OR OTHER FORMAL STATUS 



1. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: Documentation of it on 

 BLM lands in this study provides basis for 

 recommending that it be proposed as sensitive. 



2. STATE: Penstemon whippleanus is currently 

 listed by the Montana Natural Heritage 

 Program as "critically imperiled because of 

 extreme rarity (5 or fewer occurrences, or very 

 few remaining individuals) , or because of some 

 factor of its biology making it especially 

 vulnerable to extinction" (state rank = SI) . 



No changes to MTHP rank are recommended based on 

 this study. 



C. DESCRIPTION 



1. GENERAL NONTECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Penstemon 

 whippleanus is herbaceous plant with a glabrous 

 inflorescence. The anthers are glabrous; blue to 

 violet corolla; staminode glabrous or bearded only 

 near tip. 



2. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Penstemon whippleanus is 

 tufted from a surficial, branched caudex, 2-6 dm tall 



