_Butterwort Family_
In our species, stemless herbs with fibrous roots and 1-flowered
scapes; basal, tufted, entire leaves, the upper surface covered with a
viscid secretion, to which insects adhere and are caught by the curling
of the sensitive leaf margins; calyx 4—5-parted or 2-lipped; corolla
sac-like and contracted into a spur.
[Sidenote: =Pinguicula vulgaris= L. _Butterwort._]
Leaves pale yellowish-green, 3—7 in a rosette at the base of the
scape, greasy to the touch on the upper surface, ovate-lanceolate,
obtuse, 1—2 inches long, ¼ as wide. Flowers solitary on a slender
scape, violet-purple, nearly ½ an inch broad when expanded, 2-lipped;
the upper lip 2-lobed; the lower 3-lobed, larger; the tube gradually
contracted into an obtuse or acute nearly straight spur, ⅓ of an inch
long.
In wet mossy places, on rocks, or edges of gravelly stream beds
throughout the Rockies, at the lower altitudes; the bright little
flowers suggesting violets; flowering during June.
[Illustration: _a_ Pinguicula vulgaris L. Butterwort.
_b_ Pentstemon fruticosus (Pursh) Greene. (¾ Nat.) Large Purple
Beard-Tongue.]