Penstemon Procerus, Small-Flowered Penstemon

Day 294: When a wildflower occurs in a colour variation radically different from how it is commonly found, identifying it can be challenging. Small-flowered Penstemon is normally purple, so when Team Biota found numerous examples of the white form in an area where there were no purple ones, we had to break out all the field guides. White Penstemon procerus is not uncommon by any means, just a little unexpected when you've just left a trail where purple is the rule.

There are many species and subspecies of Penstemon in Mount Rainier National Park, in shades ranging from cream through pink, purple and blue. Single flowers are always trumpet-shaped, but the arrangement of them is variable: panicled, racemose or clustered in a whorl. Penstemon procerus (whether appearing in purple or creamy-white) and P. confertus (creamy-white or yellow) were once considered to be a single species. Even today, the "lumpers" argue with the "splitters" over whether a distinction should be made between the two, or whether the colour variations should be treated as subspecies. The point can be made that, for example, Nasturtiums occur in cream, yellow, orange and deep red, but the colours are not considered different species or subspecies. The inconsistency in the discipline is enough to make you want to throw your hands in the air, your field guides and manuals in the river, and go back to the simpler days when wildflowers were bunched under a generic name: "Oh, look! Penstemon!"