Plants 5-30(-40) cm; scape usually glabrous, sometimes glandular-puberulent proxi-mally. Caudices not obvious at anthesis; roots whitish; bulblets absent. Leaves 3-13(-18) × 0.7-2.5(-4) cm; petiole slender (at least proximally); blade narrowly oblanceolate to spatulate or obovate, base usually not decurrent onto stem, usually abruptly tapering to petiole, margins entire, surfaces glabrous or glandular-puberulent. Inflorescences 1-7(-10)-flowered; bracts lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, 3-10 mm, glandular-puberulent. Pedicels 1-5 cm, glabrous or glandular-puberulent. Flowers: calyx light green to yellowish, sometimes finely purple-speckled or -dotted, 5-12 mm, glabrous or glandular-puberulent, tube 2-6 mm, lobes 5, 3-7 mm; corolla tube yellowish with purplish red, thin, wavy ring, lobes 5, usually magenta, sometimes white, 7-25(-35) mm; filaments usually distinct, yellowish or dark maroon, 0.5-1.5 mm, rarely partially connate and tube 0.5-1.5 × 1.5-5 mm; anthers 5-9 mm; pollen sacs usually maroon or yellow, sometimes yellowish and speckled maroon, rarely with reddish purple to purple speckles, connective usually maroon, sometimes yellowish or light blue to whitish, transversely rugose; stigma not enlarged compared to style. Capsules tan, often striped with purple, usually operculate, rarely valvate, cylindric-ovoid, 8-17(-22) × 4-6(-8) mm, glabrous; walls thin, pliable. Seeds without membrane along edges. 2n = 44.

Both Dodecatheon conjugens and D. poeticum occur in proximity in the Columbia River gorge. Some specimens here assigned to var. conjugens may have scattered, minute glands on the pedicels that might indicate past hybridization with D. poeticum (e.g., G. N. Jones 6286, ORE; R. R. Halse 3790, OSC, WTU). Dodecatheon poeticum is densely glandular not only on the pedicels, but also on the calyx and scape. The type of minute glandular puberulence seen on var. conjugens found along the Columbia River west of The Dalles is somewhat similar to that seen on var. viscidum in western Montana and Canada. Some plants referred here to D. conjugens have slightly connate filaments that may indicate some intergradation with D. pulchellum var. pulchellum. This suggestion is supported by the tendency in the same plants to have narrower leaves.

Some newly emerged flowers tend to have connectives that are less rugose than normal. This is particularly true of some populations in southern Alberta and, to a lesser degree, in Saskatchewan.

Scapes glabrous. Leaf blades glabrous. Pedicels glabrous. Flowers: calyx glabrous; connective usually maroon, sometimes light blue to whitish. 2n = 44.

Flowering spring-early summer. Moist slopes and meadows, often in sagebrush communities, conifer woodlands, or alpine meadows; 50-2900(-3200) m.; Calif., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Oreg., Wash., Wyo.

Variety conjugens is widely scattered east of the Cascade Ranges from northeastern California (Modoc County) and northwestern Nevada (northern Washoe County) northward through Oregon to Washington, and in the Wallowa Mountains of northeastern Oregon. In the Rocky Mountains, it is found in central and northern Idaho eastward into western Montana and the northern two-thirds of Wyoming as far east as the western edge of the Great Plains. High-elevation plants of var. conjugens in western Wyoming approach var. viscidum in sometimes having minute glands on the pedicels, making a distinction between the two rather arbitrary. Usually, the scape of var. viscidum is also glandular-puberulent proximally.