Penstemon tusharensis?

[Zdenek]

I have intended to write an article about this Penstemon for our magazin Skalnicky, as it is nice and worth growing by my oppinion and comparatively unknown. I have received seed of this plant from an seed exchange about four years ago. When looking for some source of informations on internet today, I have found that it is quite mysterious species. Flora of North America does't know it at all, according The Plant List it is an unresolved species. I have found it only on IPNI and at the Plant Encyclopaedia of AGS. The description in the Encyclopaedia doesn't however fit too much to my plant as my plant is covering the surface very low, about 2-3 cm. I enclose here my photo. Can somebody tell me if my plant has in fact other name, please?

[Maggi Young]

Penstemon tusharensis  N.H. Holmgren  is shown to also be known as
Penstemon caespitosus Nutt. ex A. Gray var. suffruticosus A. Gray

http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/166455-Penstemon-tusharensis   says :
Utah HP considers a synonym of Penstemon caespitosus ssp/var suffruticosus (Feb94, Jan98); when accepted at the species level (as by Kartesz, 1994 checklist and 1999 synthesis), the name is P. tusharensis.


I will contact a Penstemon loving  expert to ask his opinion, Zdenek.

[Maggi Young]

I've emailed with Bob Nold- and he says that your photo looks correct for P. tusharensis. He will send me more information later - kind chap that he is!

Bob is the person to ask about Penstemons - 

"Penstemons" Robert Nold and Cindy Nelson Nold
 Timber Press  (15 Sep 1999)
ISBN-10: 0881924296
ISBN-13: 978-0881924299


http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0881924296/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

[penstemon]

Oh dear. Penstemon tusharensis used to be called P. caespitosus subsp. suffruticosus, and then P. suffrutescens, but according to Holmgren in Nomenclatural changes in some intermountain penstemons (Scrophulariaceae), Brittonia 31 (1), 1979, p.106-7, the type used for P. suffrutescens is P. crandallii, and the name proposed by Nelson to described this sub-shrubby little penstemon, P. xylus, was also P. crandallii, well, you can see where this is going.
"The plants of the Tushar Range of central Utah appear to be more closely allied to P. thompsoniae (A. Gray) Rydb. than to P. caespitosus.
The stems on P. tusharensis are ascending; the new growth appears canescent. The real diagnosis would be made by looking at the hairs on the leaves with a 30x magnifying glass.

Here is an illustration by Paul Martin of P. tusharensis, grown in my garden from Ratko seed, years ago.


Bob Nold

[Maggi Young]

Kind thanks to Bob for his input - much appreciated.

[penstemon]

You're welcome. I'm not sure I would call it "input", since penstemons in Section Ericopsis can be something of a nightmare to identify. There seem to be some well-defined species like Penstemon discolor, californicus, linarioides, abietinus, rostratus, acaulis, etc., but when we talk about P. caespitosus and P. crandallii, then the arguments begin.
In general, if it's flat, and roots as it grows, it's P. caespitosus; if it's dome or mound, it's P. crandallii. If people say they're growing P. teucrioides, this taxon was a figment of E.L. Green's imagination and it's the variable P. crandallii. If it dies right after planting, it is, or was, P. acaulis. If it dies as it's being planted, it was P. yampaensis.


Bob Nold

[Zdenek]

Hello Maggi and Bob, thank you very much for your inspiring comments. I have known that synonym for P. tusharensis is P. caespitosus var. suffrutescens but my problems had been two: That any from them is not in Flora of North America and that in the Plant Encyclopaedia are stems of P.t. described as ascending.
I believe that small Penstemons are a nightmare. I see, too, that the reply to my questions are not simple. I have looked on CalPhotos on P. thompsoniae. It is really quite similar but its leaves are much more hoary. Also P. caespitosus var. desertipicti is similar. but more compact.
Well, I see now that I probably will stay at the name tusharensis (which likes me) but must be aware that this name is somewhat problematic.
As regards small Penstemons, I grow (or had growed) several others and I enlose their photos here:
Penstemon caespitosus
Penstemon eriantherus
Penstemon teucrioides (?)
Penstemon uintahensis
and Penstemon acaulis
The picture of the latest is however more than 20 years old and it is scanned from a slide. I like your charakteristic of it, Bob: If it dies right after planting, it is true. I tried it several times since then, but it dies and dies. So it must be true.

[astragalus]

Hi Bob.  Great comments.  I certainly second your comments on the Ericopsis section of penstemon.  What I grow as P. teucrioides which came from seed I collected in South Park, Colorado (about 10,000 feet), was clearly distinct or seemed to be, from P. caespitosus, which people were claiming it to be.  I second your observations on P. acaulis and P. yampaensis.  They seem to be fleeting in the garden although P. acaulis has lasted as long as 3 years - note the word is "lasted", not "thrived".

[ebbie]

Is this Penstemon acaulis? I have it now for almost three years in my alpine house. But even here there is only very modest growth, but hitherto it blooms regularly.

[penstemon]

All those penstemons seem to be correctly identified to me, but my eyesight and mind are failing with increasing age .... Penstemon teucrioides can safely be called P. crandallii.
The type locality for Greene's P. teucrioides is now under water (Blue Mesa Reservoir), on the western side of the Continental Divide. Plants called P. teucrioides from South Park are P. crandallii. In fact, you can see plants answering to "teucrioides" at the type locality for P. crandallii. At Como, Colorado, take the Boreas Pass Road, and before you get to the cattle guard, stop the car and walk over to the other side of the road (the southwest side, I guess), and there are the penstemons. It's not a uniform population by any means.
Greene believed that every new variant he discovered was a separate species, which is why there are 32 species of Ptelea with his name attached to them.
I'm just repeating what Bill Jennings of the Colorado Native Plant Society told me. When writing the penstemon book, I piqued Bill's interest, and since he knows every single plant in the state, he spent a whole summer in herbariums and in the field researching Section Ericopsis, in particular. One of the things he said was that taxonomists tend to split closer to home, and lump the farther afield they get from their home base. Keck wrote from California, and so maybe that's why he lumped the Ericopsis penstemons.
One glaring example of this is Pennell's P. procumbens, which looks for all the world like a miniature arctostaphylos (labeled in the trade, bizarrely, as "Penstemon caespitosus 'Claude Barr'"). Keck considered it a subspecies of P. crandallii.
This is discussed in greater detail in Barrell's Flora of the Gunnison Basin, where he suggested resurrecting Pennell,s name, P. procumbens.
Maybe I should grow more of these.

Bob

[penstemon]

Here is a picture of my plants of Penstemon acaulis. Out of sight, out of mind.



Bob

[penstemon]

The snow melted and here is one plant of Penstemon acaulis, tiny seedling barely visible above the small patch of snow.


Bob

[David Nicholson]

As this thread widened a bit from just Penstemon tusharensis perhaps I could jump on it rather than open a new one with a couple of questions please:

My first image below was grown from seed, (SRGC 12/13-2922) sown in early September 2013, labelled as Penstemon buckleyi. In his book "Penstemons" Bob Nold describes it has having ".... rather thick, leathery ovate or lanceolate leaves...". I'm not sure my plant has? The other thing is, and I feel a bit of a twit saying it, it was the only one in the seed pot that germinated so I suppose it could be a weed? Any advice welcomed.

My second image is a seedling (SRGC 12/13-2921) and again sown September 2013 labelled as P. berryi but I see from Bob's book that this should be P. newberryi ssp. berryi. Now I have five of these so it's not a weed this time, but I would welcome views as to whether it looks "right"?

Given that many of the species Penstemon are from dry areas and Devon is hardly that to put it mildly I presume my seedlings are best kept under glass (frost free?) over the Winter before being planted out in Spring? Again advice welcomed.

I've got quite into Penstemon species, and regardless of my climate hope to grow many more.

[David Nicholson]

Anyone??

[Robert]

David,

I'm not an expert on Penstemon, however the plant of P. newberryi, or whatever it is, looks like it is being strongly altered by your growing conditions (maybe not enough light). This may make ID on foliage alone difficult - but then I'm not an expert. The older growth at the base of the plant does seem to resemble P. newberryi.

I have a few species Penstemon growing well outside in sand beds (and/or sand tubs) without covering them during the winter. When it rains and snows during the wintertime we can have up to 80 - 100 cm of precipitation (non-drought years). They have been long lived in the sand beds - otherwise they die off soon enough. This is limited to some of our local alpine species that are generally covered with snow all winter in their native locations.

Also, I like to transplant young seedlings in the spring when they are starting active growth. By the time it gets hot or warmer I tend to lose many of the seedlings. This works for me at least. Cuttings of many types root very easily - I tend to follow the same routine, although I do get away with transplanting well rooted cuttings in the summer too.

I wish that I could offer you more help.

Anyone???