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Botanical Description

Stems 15-50cm tall. Leaves entire, 4-17cm long, linear to narrowly oblanceolate. Flowers secund, 2.2-3cm long, blue to lavender. Desert scrub, with sagebrush, shadscale (Atriplex sp.) and rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus), to pinyon and juniper woodlands and ponderosa pine, aspen, spruce, and fir woods at 1500-3000m in Utah and Colorado. P.s. var. cyanomontanus has blue-purple flowers and leaves unilaterally oriented; leaves narrow, much less than 1cm broad. Calyx often strongly suffused with purple. P.s. var. garrettii has lanceolate leaves, mostly over 7mm wide, the tuft of basal leaves prominent at flowering time, flowers blue, often longer than 2.3cm. P.s. var. albifluvis has linear to linear-lanceolate leaves, rarely over 7mm wide. Flowers pale blue to lavender, usually less than 2.2cm long.