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White Beardtongue

Penstemon albidus

White beardtongue is the modest one of the prairie penstemons, standing under eighteen inches with small white tubes finely pencilled inside — restrained enough to walk past on a shortgrass hillside. It flowers very early, in the gap between the pasqueflowers and the main prairie bloom, which makes it disproportionately valuable to bees emerging in that lean stretch. It is a plant of gravel, caliche and hard-packed clay across the western plains, and its deep root lets it flower in a dry spring when little else bothers. The basal leaves stay green through winter. It is a larval host for checkerspot butterflies. Give it lean, sharply drained ground and full sun; it tolerates neither irrigation nor competition from taller neighbors.

Family

Plantaginaceae

Type

wildflower

Lifespan

perennial

Height

0.5–1.5 ft

Spacing

0.5–1 ft apart

Light

sun

Soil moisture

dry

Soil pH

neutral, alkaline

Bloom

April, May, June

Bloom colors

white

Wildlife value

pollinators, hummingbirds, larval host

Caterpillar hosts

~8 butterfly & moth species

Landscape uses

border, container

Native states

CO, IA, KS, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, OK, SD, TX, WY