General: Perennial herb from fibrous roots sometimes surmounted by a stem-base, smooth throughout except for the calyx-teeth; stems 1 to several, often clustered, erect, 15-70 cm tall, unbranched, sometimes reddish-purple.
Leaves: Basal leaves long-stalked, oblong-lanceolate, 5-25 cm long, pinnately lobed to deeply cleft, the lobes narrow and toothed; stem leaves alternate, several, reduced and becoming unstalked upward.
Flowers: Inflorescence a fairly dense, elongated, bracted, terminal spike of numerous flowers, the spike smooth, 4-20 cm long, the bracts similar to the leaves but much reduced, shorter than the flowers; corollas pink to reddish-purple, 10-25 mm long including the beak, 2-lipped, the upper lip short (2-3 mm), strongly hooded, prolonged into an elongate, upcurved beak (resembling an elephant trunk) 7-18 mm long, the lower lip 3-8 mm long, 3-lobed, the lobes deflexed-spreading; calyces 4-7 mm long, 5-toothed, the teeth broadly triangular, more or less equal, about 1 mm long, fringed with hairs; stamens 4, the filaments smooth.
Fruits: Capsules, asymmetrical, 7-14 mm long; seeds several, about 3 mm long, winged, net-veined.
Moist to wet meadows, thickets, swamps, seepage sites and streambanks in the montane to subalpine zones; locally frequent in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains in S BC, infrequent northward E of the Coast Mountains; N to S AK, YT and NT; E to PQ and S to NM, AZ and CA; Greenland.
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)
