Beside A Rushing Mountain Stream, A Plant With These Distinctive Light Violet Color Flowers Is Discovered. Notice The Tapered Sword Shaped Leaves Come Directly From A Central Stem.

…And To Right, Hidden In The Sage, Is A Second Plant, With 3 Orangish Blossom Buds.

……Characteristic Of This Volet Colored Flower Is 3 Lower Roundish Petals At The Bottom Of Blossom, And At The Top Are 2 Somewhat Vertical Elongated Petals.

…These Flowers Are Similar To A Family Of Flowers Genus Penstemon Azureus, Which All Have The Same Characteristic Flower Shape. ..… Approximately June 21, 2002.

Beartooth Highway (US-212), ~1 mile East of junction with Rt-296 ~26 Miles EastSouthEast of Cooke City, MT. As I was climbing down to get a good photo of the very loud rushing Mountain Stream, I discovered the /\ Above /\ Photo.

…Thus, the /\ Above /\ Photo, and the NEXT TWO Photos, are demonstrated proof of the above “you must stop and get out of your car and go on short hikes”.


Click Here For Gardening WebPage That Has 3 beautiful photos. This Is As Closes I Can Find To The /\ Above /\ Photo. Click Here To See => Color Photos & Flower Name & What Leaves Look Like And Other Information.

Click Here For Wildflower Of USA WebPage That Has 3 Beautiful Photos. This Is As Closes I Can Find To The /\ Above /\ Photo. Click Here To See => Color Photos & Flower Name, & What Leaves Look Like. Also Plenty Of Advertisements That You Should Ignore.

Click Here For Wildflowers Of USA WebPage That Has 6 Beautiful But Small Photos. This Is As Closes I Can Find To The /\ Above /\ Photo. Click Here To See => Color Photos & Flower Name, & What Leaves Look Like. Also Plenty Of Technical & Scientific Information.
…There are also => 18 photos available in their Image Gallery. Each of these you can click-on for more technical information.

Click Here For Google Search Result That Is As Close I Can Find To The /\ Above /\ Photo. With Color Photos & Flower Name & What Leaves Look Like.

Click Here For Google Search Result That Is As Close I Can Find To The /\ Above /\ Photo. With Color Photos & Flower Name & What Leaves Look Like.

NOTE1: The fact that these distinctive light violet color flowers are NOT shown on WebPages such as previous photo’s mention, Yellowstone Park & Wyoming Wildflowers Page, means that they are less likely to be found in their natural setting.

NOTE2: It is only with Google’s well organized collection of images of “Penstemon Azureus” flowers, that I was able to find the name of this plant, and then good links to good images.

NOTE3: Exciting News! /\ Above/\ Photographed Flower May Be A Very Rare Flower!
…At first, via an online image search, I Henry Gurr, thought that this was Penstemon Azure or more commonly called the Azure Beardstongue. In fact, there are not many internet photos of it available online,.since this plant has a range in California and Oregon
…But David Matos, Digging into it”, subsequently realized this flower's range was ONLY in CA and OR, not WY or MT. Almost accidentally, David ran across a species that is a better fit:=> Penstemon absarokensis (Absaroka Range Beardstongue) which is a rare flower!
…Thus, this mostly likely is the Absaroka Range Beardstongue (Penstemon absarokensis), a rare species with blue to purple blooms in June and July endemic to the Absaroka Range which the Beartooth Highway transverses. Penstemon absarokensis is classified as G2 globally imperiled as it is only known in 20 occurrences, almost all on public land. Penstemon Abarokensis is native to volcanic talus slopes… Note the black volcanic rock in the bottom left hand corner of the above photo.

NEXT Photo is a general view of this “Rushing Mountain Stream”, and the general flora on the adjacent mountainside.
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(Photo = 106-0647_IMG,JPG ...... ZMM Page = NA ...... WayPt = 150)