BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN PENSTEMON SOCIETY Winter 1992 Number 51-1 Membership in the American Penstemon Society is $10.00 a year. Life BULLETIN OF THE membership is $200.00. Dues are payable in January of each year. Checks or money orders, in US funds only please, are payable to the AMERICAN PENSTEMON SOCIETY American Penstemon Society, and may be sent to: Ann Bartlett, Membership Secretary Volume 51 Number 1 Winter 1992 1569 South Holland Court, Lakewood, Colorado 80232, USA. Features Electi~e Officers President: Gwen Kelaidis, 1410 Eudora St, Denver, CO 80220 Vice President: Ramona Osburn, 1325 Wagon Trail Drive, Jacksonville, OR 97530 Penstemon Species with Alternate or Whorled Leaves, Membership Secreta!}': Aun Bartlett, 1569 S. Holland Ct., Lakewood, CO 80232 Treasurer: Steve Hoitink, 3016 East 14th Avenue, Spokane, WA 99202 by Kenneth and Robin Lodewick 3 Robins Coordinator: Betty Davenport, 21624 12lst Court East, Sumner, WA 98390 Executive Board: Micki Crozier, Route 2, Box 130, Sedgwick, KS 67135 Dara Erne!}" 517 West Junipero St. 2, Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Barrie Porteous, 15 Brimwood Blvd. Twh. 25, Agincourt, Letters from Robin Members 5 Ontario, Canada MIV lEI Appointille Officers Director of Seed Exchange: Ellen Wilde, 110 Calle Pifionera, Santa Fe, NM 87505 Editors: Jeanie Vesall, 9850 Heron Ave. North, White Bear Lake, MN 55110 Editorial Assistants: Betty Davenport, Gwen Kelaidis Custodian of Slide Collection: James Taylor, 52 Eastwood, Hutchinson, KS 67502 Registrar of Cultivars & Hybrids: Dale Lindgren, West Central Research Center, Route 4 Box 46A, North Platte, NE 69101 Librarian: Elizabeth Bolender, c/o Cox Arboretum, Springboro Pike, Departments Dayton, OH 45449 Robins and Robin Directors Meeting Report 38 I Executive Gwen Kelaidis, 1410 Eudora St., Denver, CO 80220 Notes 2 Photography Betty Davenport, 21624 121st Court East, Sumner, WA 98390 3 Cross Count!}' Verla Heitman, Rt. I, Box 77, Hardy, NE 68943 from the President 39 6 Cross Count!}' Frances Burrell, 561 Montana Ave., Lovell, WY 82431 from the Secretary 40 7 West Coast & Canada Betty Davenport, 21624 121st Court East, Sumner, WA 98390 Cover Penstemon 8 Small Penstemons Ramona Osburn, 1325 Wagon Trail Drive, Jacksonville, OR 97530 44 9 Hybridization & Selection James Taylor, 52 Eastwood, Hutchinson, KS 67502 10 Southwest Ellen Wilde, 110 Calle Pifionera, Santa Fe, NM 87505 11 Cross Count!}' Betty Davenport, 21624 12lst Court East, Sumner, WA 98390 13 Directors Betty Davenport, 21624 12lst Court East, Sumner, WA 98390 14 Cross Counll}' Ramona Osburn, 1325 Wagon Trail Drive, Jacksonville, OR 97530 16 International Shirley Backman, 1335 Hoge Road, Reno, NV 89503 20 West Coast Thelma Chatfield, 2403 SW 122nd Place, Seattle, WA 98146 The American Penstemon Society is a non-profit, unincorporated plant society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about penstemons, their introduction into cultivation, and the development of new and improved Cover: cultivars. The Bulletin of the American Penstemon Society is published in July Front and Back Cover: Penstemon whippleanus. Photos by Dick and Ann and December. Bulk postage is paid in Denver, Colorado. Bartlett. For more information see page 44. Penstemon Species with Alternate or Whorled Leaves by Kenneth and Robin Lodewick Eugene,Oregon Most penstemons have opposite leaves. That is, wherever one leaf appears on the stalk, another leaf is paired with it on the opposite side of the stalk. This place, where leaves are borne on the stalk, is called a node. The nodes of an inflorescence usually bear opposite bracts and flower-cymes when the leaf nodes do. In a few penstemon species, however, the leaves or the bracts or both are not opposite, but are alternate or whorled. True alternate leaves are found in only one species, P. gairdneri. It bears a single leaf at each node, frrst on one side of the stalk, then on the other. A close relative, P. seorsus, shows a tendency toward alternate leaves. The bases of its opposite leaves are often slipped or offset so that one is slightly higher than its mate. Slipped leaf-bases are also found in P. diphyllus and P. cusickii and sometimes in other species such as P. richardsonii. (Distorted nodes may be produced in any penstemon species because of insect damage.) Whorled leaves, a circle of three or more leaves at one node, are characteristic of P. triphyl/us and P. deustus var. variabilis. There is evidence that leaf-whorls may result from a morphological error. One year in our garden, a single plant of P. campanulatus produced a stem bearing three leaves at each node (the flower­ cymes remained opposite). This plant did not have whorled leaves the next year. Botanists have told us this abnormality was probably caused by an insect bite or infection. A whorl of three leaves at each node has been described for P. parviflorus and P. miniatus ssp. townsendianus triphylius. Each was collected once and have not, apparently, been seen again. Botanist Alice Eastwood, in 1890, collected a single specimen of a penstemon from southwestern Colorado. She identified it as P. jamesii. In 1920 Francis Pennell reexamined this same penstemon and published Eastwood's find as a new species, P. parviflorus. David Keck was first, in 1938, to record the 3-leaved whorl arrangement of the foliage of P. parviflorus. Eastwood's specimen of P. parviflorus is now located in the type-cabinet at the National Herbarium; a photograph of it seems to have been used for the drawing in Rare Plants in Colorado. The type-specimen of P. parviflorus looks depauperate, i.e., poorly developed. There are no basal leaves, but two small side-stems branch from the base of the flower stalk forming a tuft. The two lower stem nodes have opposite leaves; the third node is a 3-leaved whorl, as are the inflorescence nodes above it. The cyme is few-flowered; the corolla 12 mm long and the calyx 8 mm long. Anthers (not 2 Bulletin of the American Penstemon Society Vol. 51-1 3 visible on the specimen) are described as narrow, open to the connective, but not Letters from Robin Members explanate. Dr. Keck wrote that if no more plants of P. parvijlorus were found, it might be called an aberrant, out-of-range P. auriberbis. He apparently based this on the shape of the anther sacs. We suggest another possibility. Carl Amason, Calion, Arkansas The smaller-flowered forms of P.jamesii found in southwestern Colorado are #6 Cross Country now known as P. breviculus and P. ophianlhus. Different botanists have described the anthers on P. ophianlhus as "explanate," "becoming explanate," or April 6, 1991 "horseshoe-shaped, not explanate." Explanate anthers may look boat-shaped as In my strollings I fmd: P. laxijlorus almost in bloom, naturalized on a dry they open, or if crushed in pressing. Furthermore, and most amazingly, the sandy, sunny bank; P. digitalis is everywhere; I have a few plants of P. illustration of P. ophianthus (drawn by Jeanne Janish) in Intermountain Flora murrayanus doing well; P. tenuis will more than likely show up; and I have one or shows 3-parted bracts. two P. smallii. My P. pinijolius all died, probably due to root- rot I ordered and For these reasons, we consider P. parviflorus to have been an aberrant P. received from Yucca-Do Nursery, Waller (west of Houston), Texas, one each of breviculus or P. ophianthus and tllerefore do not include it in our Key. P. havardii and P. triflorus. They were beautiful big plants when they arrived in early December and I planted them in the sunniest spot I could find and then came the hard Christmas freezes, down to lOOP. Penstemon trijlorus from south Texas remained beautiful, but the west Texas P. havardii was almost killed. I would have thought the reverse would have been most likely. For those who are seeking sources of penstemon plants, I have a catalogue, 1991 edition of Colorado Alpines, Inc., P. O. box 2707, Avon, CO 81620 Phone (303)949-6464 and by actual count, 27 [penstemon] species, subspecies, and botanical varieties are listed. Prices begin at $2.75 others are $ 3.25-$3.50. My experience with them is that they send small, almost tiny plants and they came to me too late to live. Plants of the Southwest, 930 Baca Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone(505) 983-1548 also has a beautiful catalogue of Southwestern natives and I count 22 species, most are seeds @ $1.50 per packet and plants at a uniform $3.50 each. It was surprising to me how well the Eastern penstemons, P. hirsutus, P. smallii, and P. tubaeflorus do here with extra water and partial shade. Shirley Backman, Reno, Nevada #16 Overseas April 18, 1991 The Mexican hybrid that I bought at Boyce Thompson Arboretum is now 3' wide and 3' tall, but sprawly. The other Mexican is P. campanulmus bloomed from seed this year and I did get a rosy flower along with the blue or lavender plants. I have decided to send in a collection of mixed Habroanthus seeds, because so many of them reseed in the garden. One was marked P. scariosus ssp. garrettii. I have a number of new plants twlt I bought from Siskiyou or Colorado Alpines and I have built a raised bed for them. The bed is a mixture of decomposed granite, pea gravel, and good soil (about a third of each). I have been having an awful time with weeds, so I put plastic screening over the bed, cut holes for the plants, and covered this with pea gravel. It has kept the weeds down nicely. 5 4 Bulleti1l of the America1l PellSlemo1l Society Vol. 51-1 Penstemon crandallii, probably procumbens, is covering 18 square inches and growing beautiful [specimens of] P.