General: Perennial herb from a creeping rhizome; finely-hairy throughout, rarely with longer spreading hairs; stems erect, simple or branched above, 30-70 cm tall, 4-angled.
Leaves: All stem leaves; opposite, lanceolate to broadly egg-shaped, 2.5-8 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, more or less sharply toothed; stalks to 1.5 cm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a single, large, terminal, head-like cluster, closely surrounded by leaf-like bracts; corollas tubular, 2.5-3.5 cm long, purple, finely-hairy, strongly 2-lipped, the upper lip narrow and arc-shaped and bearded at tip, the lower lip spreading and 3-lobed; calyces tubular, 7-11 mm long, the teeth only 1 mm long, the opening white-hairy within and sometimes also outside, 15-veined.
Mesic to dry shrublands, meadows and open forests in the steppe and lower montane zones; frequent in BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; N to NT, E to PQ, and S to GA and MX.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)