The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

large mountain monkey-flower

musk-flower, musk-plant

Habit Rhizomatous perennials, rooting at nodes nearest the base, occasionally producing runners with creeping form and small leaves, forming colonies of mats, rhizomes threadlike; stems 3-10 cm, usually prostrate or with some curving upward distally, usually massed, round or somewhat flat, branching, may be glabrous or slightly hirtellous or with stalked glands. Perennial from well-developed rhizomes, the lax stems 0.5-7 dm. long, often freely branching; herbage viscid-villous with flattened, shining white hairs, usually slimy, often musk-scented.
Leaves

Leaves both basal and cauline; petiolate, proximal petioles 2-5 mm, becoming sessile distally;

blade commonly purplish beneath, orbicular to ovate to narrowly elliptic, leaves nearest base somewhat lyrate, 3-12 mm and becoming larger farther from base, palmate venation with 3 veins, base wedge-shaped, margins entire to barely finely toothed, apex obtuse, somewhat puberulent above and beneath, hairs minute and stipitate-glandular.

Leaves opposite, remotely toothed, pinnately veined, sessile or short-petiolate, the blade ovate to elliptic-ovate, 1-8 cm. long and 7-35 mm. wide.

Flowers

Axillary flowers 1-3, from nodes farthest from base, usually solitary; fruiting pedicels generally 10-30 mm, somewhat villous with short gland-tipped hairs, occasionally hirtellous;

calyx broadly bell-shaped, inflated, compressed along sagittal plane, 7-15 mm, glabrous or hirtellous or stipitate-glandular, throat closing, lobe pair nearest base curving upwards, other lobes 3-5 mm, prominently protruding;

corollas yellow with dark red spots, symmetric bilaterally, bilabiate;

tube-throat widely funnel-shaped to nearly cylindric, 15-18 mm, protruding beyond calyx margin; lower limb deflexed and spreading, upper limb curving upward, palate partially closed;

styles slightly hirtellous;

anthers not protruding, glabrous.

Flowers solitary in the leaf axils on long pedicels;

calyx 7-13 mm. long, viscid-villous, especially on the 5 rib angles, the 5 teeth pointed, 2-4 mm. long, the upper tooth a little larger than the others;

corolla 1.5-3 cm. long, yellow, often with some dark lines or dots, only slightly bilabiate, the tube nearly cylindrical;

stamens 4.

Fruit(s)

Capsules 4-5 mm, included.

Capsule.

Erythranthe caespitosa

Erythranthe moschata

Flowering time July-September May-August
Habitat Wet meadows and wet, rocky slopes at high elevations in the mountains. Stream banks, moist meadows and seeps, low to middle elevations in the mountains.
Distribution
Occurring in the Olympics and Cascades mountains of Washington; British Columbia south to Oregon, east to Idaho.
[WildflowerSearch map]
Occurring chiefly east of the Cascades crest in Washington; British Columbia to California, east to the Rocky Mountains; also in eastern North America.
[WildflowerSearch map]
Origin Native Native
Conservation status Not of concern Not of concern
Sibling taxa
E. alsinoides, E. ampliata, E. arvensis, E. breviflora, E. breweri, E. cardinalis, E. decora, E. dentata, E. floribunda, E. grandis, E. guttata, E. inflatula, E. jungermannioides, E. lewisii, E. microphylla, E. moschata, E. nasuta, E. patula, E. primuloides, E. ptilota, E. pulsiferae, E. scouleri, E. suksdorfii, E. washingtonensis
E. alsinoides, E. ampliata, E. arvensis, E. breviflora, E. breweri, E. caespitosa, E. cardinalis, E. decora, E. dentata, E. floribunda, E. grandis, E. guttata, E. inflatula, E. jungermannioides, E. lewisii, E. microphylla, E. nasuta, E. patula, E. primuloides, E. ptilota, E. pulsiferae, E. scouleri, E. suksdorfii, E. washingtonensis
Web links