Please post all thoughts or clues to Penstemon-L
Photo by Paige Woodward
Penstemon on a rock often lashed by stormy seas at Kyuquot, on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
photo by Paige Woodward
Penstemon grown from cutting taken at Kyuquot, blooming on
Chilliwack Mountain, in southwestern BC in June 2000
photo by Paige Woodward
Leaf detail of the penstemon in "Kyuquot 2" (above photo of grown cutting)
Direct Scan of leaves and Commentary by Paige Woodward
Shown above are leaves of Penstemons in our rock garden. Depends what you mean by photo, of course, but it's a direct scan, like the other leaf image. I just put the leaves on the glass and closed the lid. Top row: all from the Kyuquot plant. Bottom row: from 3 plants of Penstemon davidsonii var. menziesii all from the same seed lot. It's hard to say what the Kyuquot plant could be if it's not davidsonii. The flower is davidsonii-style -- I carefully cut the flower down its median to scan it as a cutaway profile, with its beard; then the telephone rang and by the time I got back to the flower sample, it was pretty sad-looking. Unfortunately it was the last complete flower of the year. What intrigues me about this plant: 1. its low habit and leaf pattern. Beautiful! 2. that it lives splashed by salty waves for months at a time. 3. that its leaves are *much* thicker and more leathery than those of other members of the Dasanthera group that I grow. I think of this as an adaptation to salt water, but this may be too short a mind-leap. Other plants that survive on rocky islets in Kyuquot Sound include Fragaria chiloensis and Fritillaria camschatcensis, and they are not stunningly thicker-skinned than their counterparts farther inland. 4. that its leaves are serrated but markedly flat at the tip. Botany books say everything in this area is Penstemon davidsonii var. menziesii, which of course has a serrated leaf. But all davidsonii vars have a leaf which, serrated or not, is fairly pointed, no? Or is the leaf shape too variable to use as a clue?