Flora of North America species comparison

erect, green, flushed with red proximally or red throughout, unbranched or branches obliquely arising from rosette and secondary branches arising from main stem, 30–250 cm.

in a basal rosette and cauline, basal 10–43 × 1.2–4(–6) cm, cauline 4–25 × 1–2.5(–4) cm;

blade dull green to grayish green, rarely red, narrowly oblanceolate or oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic or narrowly lanceolate, margins usually flat, rarely undulate, bluntly dentate or subentire, teeth sometimes widely spaced, proximal blades sometimes sinuate-dentate toward base;

bracts persistent.

erect, unbranched.

opening near sunset;

buds erect, 6–10 mm diam., with free tips terminal, erect, 1–7 mm;

floral tube (20–)30–45(–50) mm;

sepals yellowish green, red-striped or strongly flushed with red, 27–50 mm;

petals yellow to pale yellow, fading orange or pale yellow, very broadly obcordate, (25–)30–47(–55) mm;

filaments 17–25 mm, anthers 8–23 mm, pollen 90–100% fertile;

style 50–90 mm, stigma exserted beyond anthers at anthesis.

erect or slightly spreading, dull green or gray-green when dry, narrowly lanceoloid, 20–65 × 4–7 mm, free tips of valves 0.5–2.5 mm.

1–1.9 × 0.6–1.2 mm.

thalassaphila (Brandegee) W.

& W.

.

differs from subsp. drummondii in a number of modally distinctive morphological features, especially floral tubes 2–3.5 cm, sepal tips 0.3–1 mm, capsules 2–4 cm × 2.5–5 mm in diameter and those, coupled with the great disjunction from the Atlantic coast of the United States and Mexico to the southern tip of Baja California, make it worthy of recognition.

drummondii is self-compatible and outcrossing.