Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Herbaceous biennials or perennials to 2 m tall, stems solitary or branching from the base, herbage minutely strigose and also glandular (especially in the inflorescence) with long, spreading hairs, generally with red, blister-like bases, plants with fleshy taproots.

Leaves: Alternate, sessile, in basal rosettes, lanceolate to elliptic, 10-30 cm long, margins entire to minutely dentate.

Flowers: Yellow fading pale orange, large and showy with 4 notched petals with rounded lobes petals 7-20 mm long, sepals often reddish, the free tips in bud 0.5-2.5 mm long, hypanthium 25-40 mm long, flowers borne in open, few-flowered spikes, the internodes enlarging in fruit (usually becoming larger than the fruits).

Fruits: Narrowly cylindrical, loculicidal capsules, 20-35 mm long and 4-7 mm wide. Seeds 1-2 mm long, with angled edges and irregularly pitted surfaces.

Ecology: Found in moist openings in the forest, from 1,500-7,000 ft (457-2134 m); flowering June-August.

Distribution: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher2012