Orthocarpus luteus (Owl-clover)
Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon Family)

Foothills, montane. Openings. Summer.
Narraguinnep Natural Area, August 11, 2005.

Growing across most of the Western U.S. to the upper Midwest, Orthocarpus luteus is the most wide ranging Orthocarpus.  It grows in sagebrush meadows and open Aspen/Gambel Oak/Ponderosa woodlands and is shown on this page in such a woodland with its close cousin, Orthocarpus purpureoalbus.  The two were growing within a few feet of each other.  Both plants are slender, with narrow, linear leaves and a terminal spike of strangely club-shaped flowers.

Thomas Nuttall collected the first specimen of this strangely lovely plant "in humid situations on the plains of the Missouri, near Fort Mandan" in 1812 (as quoted in Intermountain Flora) and named it in his 1818 Genera of North America Plants.  Nuttall called the genus "Orthocarpus" because of its straight ("ortho") fruit ("carpus").  "Luteus" is Latin for "yellow".

Orthocarpus luteus (Owl-clover)
Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon Family)

Foothills, montane. Openings. Summer.
Narraguinnep Natural Area, August 11, 2005.

Orthocarpus luteus (Owl-clover)
Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon Family)

Foothills, montane. Openings. Summer.
Near the Wildcat Trail, August 15, 2007.

Orthocarpus luteus (Owl-clover)
Scrophulariaceae (Snapdragon Family)

Foothills, montane. Openings. Summer.
Lone Mesa State Park, August 23, 2008.