Blowout Penstemon

Blowout penstemon (Penstemon haydenii) makes its home in blowouts of the Sandhills. It is the only federally endangered plant in Nebraska and is one of the rarest plants of the Great Plains. This penstemon was first collected in 1857 by its namesake, Ferdinand Hayden, and then later described in 1891 by a curator at Harvard University. It is an exceptional plant in that it is one of only a few penstemons in the world that are strongly scented. The scent, wafting from the predominately blue to purple flowers, has been likened to white chocolate. This rare plant can stand up to twenty inches tall, flowers between June and July, and is uniquely adapted to a blowout’s harsh environment of blowing sand and lack of water. Its extensive belowground root structures and aboveground stems that have a waxy coating and become shorter and thicker, enable the plant to stand up to sandblasting. Blowout grass (Redfieldia flexuosa) and blowout penstemon have similar root properties that help hold sand together. Their stabilizing features allow the blowout to heal and for plants less adapted to harsh conditions to become established in blowouts. Once this occurs, the blowout penstemon can’t compete and will disappear. The decline of blowout penstemon has been linked to sand stabilization due to changes in cattle grazing rotations and control of fires that have prevented the formation of blowouts. In 1940 the blowout penstemon was thought to be extinct until it was found again in 1968. Several state and federal agencies have worked to establish blowout penstemon in active blowouts, helping the population to increase over the past several decades. The blowout penstemon is federally protected, making it illegal to collect or have any portion of the plant in your possession without both a state and federal permit.