Synonyms: Gilia spicata Other names: spiked ipomopsis Nomenclature: spicata = in spikes (flowers) Nativity / Invasiveness: Montana native plant
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Description
General: perennial, the taproot topped by a branched or simple crown. Stems several or solitary, herbaceous, erect, simple, 5-30 cm tall. Flower cluster and herbage loosely and often rather thinly cobwebby-woolly-hairy.
Leaves: alternate, mostly 3-parted or pinnatifid with a narrow axis and segments, or in some stunted individuals sometimes all entire. Basal leaves tufted and persistent, 1-6 cm long, stem leaves often smaller but still generally well developed.
Flowers: numerous, stalkless in a terminal, dense, rounded or more often slightly elongated cluster with bracts at bases. Corolla persistent, white, the tube 5-9 mm long, quite a bit longer than the calyx, the 5 spreading lobes 2.5-5 mm long. Filaments attached at the recesses of the corolla, shorter than the 0.6-1.0 mm anthers. Style short, not reaching much, if at all, beyond the middle of the corolla tube.
June-August.
Fruits: capsules with seeds 2.5-3 mm long, becoming slimy on the surface when wet.
Distribution
Dry, open places, from the plains to high elevations in the mountains, in w. and s.c. parts of MT. Also from c. ID to SD, KS, CO, and UT.
Sub taxa:
Our specimen belong to ssp. capitata (Gray) V. Grant = Gilia spicata var. orchidacea.
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