Penstemon pallidusSmall

pale beardtongue

WFO wfo-0001136598 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Penstemon pallidus, photographed by john_hall
fig. a john_hall, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-09 / obs. 196532726
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Courtney Alley
fig. b Courtney Alley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 73356860
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by jerr17
fig. c jerr17, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 40935437
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Mike B
fig. d Mike B, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 18698004
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Mike B
fig. e Mike B, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 18627667
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Mike B
fig. f Mike B, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 18628119
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Evan Barker
fig. g Evan Barker, CC0 1.0 / obs. 3817339
Penstemon pallidus, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. h Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129244695

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 28 botanical countries

Regions where Penstemon pallidus is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin AlabamaArkansasConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMissouriNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioPennsylvaniaTennesseeVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin District of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Penstemon pallidus, 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
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Pennsylvania PEN
Rhode I. RHO
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

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 203 in flower of 217 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Penstemon pallidus 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. 203 of 217 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 2 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.

  • Penstemon arkansanus var. pubescens Pennell
  • Penstemon brevisepalus f. heterolasius Fernald

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.