Yellow Beardtongue

Penstemon confertus

Pollinator plant

Growing it

When	Flowers May to July; fruits July to August
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun, partial shade
Water	Medium, high
Soil	pH 5.5–7.5
Hardiness	zone 3–7
Mature height	0.5 m
Mature spread	0.45 m
Spacing	0.3 m
Years to maturity	2
Bloom	May–Jul
Flower colour	Yellow checked against its common name
In bloom	May June July
Fruit	Jul–Aug
Native to	AB, SK

lance-shaped leaves about 8 cm long in opposite pairs

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

51 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 38 herbarium specimens and 277 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Northern Continental Divide south AB: 387 records, high confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 74 records, high confidence
Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 15 records, medium confidence
Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 11 records, medium confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 8 records, medium confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 6 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

26 documented relationships.

nectar for

Anicia Checkerspot Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Black-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Brown-tailed Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Central Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Frigid Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Golden Northern Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Hoplitis hypocrita Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Hoplitis producta Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Hunt's Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Megachile frigida Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Nevada Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Orange-banded Bumble Bee Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia albolateralis Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia brevis Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia bucephala LaManna et al. 2020
Osmia densa Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia odontogaster Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia pentstemonis Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia pusilla LaManna et al. 2020
Red-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Vancouver Bumble Bee Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Western Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Yellow Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee Specimen records from ecdysis.org

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate