A Couple Eastern Penstemons

Some plant families, or some their genera seem scarce in the east, while weedy in their abundance in the west. The Snapdragon Family (Scrophulariaceae) is perhaps the best example of this.

The entire family, the paintbrushes, the louseworts, the blue-eyed marys, the penstemons, monkeyflowers, all are much more abundant west of the Rockies. And it hasn't just been in California; the Pacific Northwest has its share of species. Many, many species. But there are a few "back east."

Penstemons, which I have discovered are very, very fond of the Pacific Northwest (and you will be reading about them sooner or later), have a few cousins in the east. I even managed to bump into a couple, Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) in Ohio, and Gray Beardtongue (P. canescens) in North Carolina. A few other eastern species include Hairy Beardtongue (P. hirsutus), Large-flowered Beardtongue (P. grandiflorus), Small's Beardtongue (P. smalii), and Cobaea Beardtongue (P. cobaea).

The common "beardtongue" moniker in this geuns refers to the tuft of hairs found on the sterile stamen in many of them. The generic penstemon refers to that sterile stamen. Pen means "almost"; thus it means "almost a stamen." (The sterile stamen is called a staminode.) This is contrary to what some wildflower aficionados will tell you; that the generic name comes from penta, which means five, referring to the staminode as the "fifth" stamen. It just ain't so.

Gray Beardtongue was the more fetching of the two I saw, simply because the flowers were a kind of pale purple, while those of Foxglove Beardtongue were white with a hint of pink. Foxglove Beardtongue grows from South Dakota over to southern Quebec and Maine southward; Gray Beardtongue grows from Indiana over to Pennsylvania, and south to Georgia and west to Alabama.

All have tubular flowers that grow in clusters. The four fertile stamens occur in two pairs. One pair, on short filaments, attach to the flower on either side of the ovary. The other pair, on longer filaments, is attached to the bottom of the flower beneath the ovary. The staminode is attached to the upper surface, or "roof" of the flower in front of the ovary. It droops down to the bottom of the flower, sometimes sticking out of the throat of flower.

Penstemons are one of our few native species that, because of hybridization, are still actively evolving. It's not unheard of for a new species or variety to be discovered in the wild, and of course gardeners, being the botanical Dr. Frankensteins they are, have created a few new hybrids of their own.

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