Penstemon laevigatusAiton

eastern smooth beardtongue

WFO wfo-0001139864 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by Brian Finzel
fig. a Brian Finzel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-05-01 / obs. 174624485
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by John Ambler
fig. b John Ambler, CC0 1.0 / obs. 79450965
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by skitterbug
fig. c skitterbug, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 248721537
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by Becky Dill
fig. d Becky Dill, CC0 1.0 / obs. 66998414
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. e Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59694036
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by jfox16
fig. f jfox16, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 7481347
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by Curtis Hansen
fig. g Curtis Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 54314890
Penstemon laevigatus, photographed by Seig
fig. h Seig, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 98461591

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 19 botanical countries

Regions where Penstemon laevigatus is native: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia AlabamaConnecticutFloridaGeorgiaKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMassachusettsMississippiNew JerseyNorth CarolinaOhioPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTennesseeVirginiaWest Virginia DelawareDistrict of Columbia
Native distribution of Penstemon laevigatus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Mississippi MSI
New Jersey NWJ
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Pennsylvania PEN
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 113 in flower of 123 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Penstemon laevigatus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 113 of 123 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 8 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Bartramia pulchella Salisb.
  • Chelone laevigata Pers.
  • Chelone laevigata J.Thomps.
  • Chelone pentstemon L.
  • Penstemon glaucophyllus Scheele
  • Penstemon laevigatus var. canescens Britton
  • Penstemon nuttallii L.C.Beck
  • Penstemon pentstemon (L.) MacMill.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PELA8. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.