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Sub-alpine and alpine.  Rocky areas, wet areas, tundra. Summer.
Stony Pass, July 17, 2010.

This stunning plant is a rare treat in high mountain meadows and on tundra.  As the map below indicates, Pedicularis scopulorum is found almost exclusively in the Colorado Rockies.  When it is present, you know it immediately.  The only other plant with which it might be confused is Pedicularis groenlandica, another beautifully exotic, but very common, member of this genus.

Carl von Willdenow named the species Pedicularis sudetica around 1800; Asa Gray at first renamed the species Pedicularis sudetica subspecies scopulorum but then changed the name to its presently accepted Pedicularis scopulorum (probably in the mid-1800s).

"Sudetica" apparently refers to the Sudentland of Czechoslovakia and Poland, most likely the origin of the first collections of P. sudetica; the species is found in Europe and Asia as well as in North America. "Scopulorum" is Latin for "of rocky places", sometimes, as here, interpreted as meaning, "from the Rocky Mountains".

Pedicularis scopulorum. Synonym: Pedicularis sudetica subspecies scopulorum. (Alpine Lousewort).
Orobanchaceae (Broomrape Family)

Sub-alpine and alpine.  Rocky areas, wet areas, tundra. Summer.
Stony Pass, July 17, 2010.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Pedicularis scopulorum