The photo at right shows long bluebells as seen at Wilson Creek, a BLM site near the town of Wilbur, WA (Lincoln County) .............April 30, 2007. Note also the blossom of a sagebrush buttercup blooming at left.

Also known as long-flowered lungwort, long bluebells are an attractive perennial wildflower suitable for the rock garden. One to several stems arise from a branching tuberous base from 10-20 cm high. The stems are generally unbranched. The leaves are covered with short, appressed and stiff hairs above and glabrous below. The basal leaves are poorly developed or absent in flowering plants while the leaves of the lower stem are obovate in shape, those of the midstem oblong or obovate with rounded tips, and the upper leaves ovate or oblanceolate with acute tips. When present, the basal leaf is is petiolate with a broadly elliptic and rounded blade.

The pedicels are 2-6 mm long and are glabrous or covered with stiff, straight and appressed hairs. The calyx is 5-6 mm long with linear to lanceolate lobes which are glabrous except the finely ciliate margins. The corolla is 1.5-2 cm long with the tube about 3 times longer than the shallowly lobed limb. The style is slightly exserted from the mouth of the flower.

Long bluebells may be found in open to lightly shaded places amongst sagebrush or beneath ponderosa pine from the foothills to middle elevations in the mountains below 1700 meters.

Long bluebells may be found east of the Cascade Mts. from southern British Columbia south across eastern Washington and Oregon to northeastern California and east to northwestern Montana (to the west of the continental divide) and the western edge of the Snake River Plains as far east as Boise, Idaho.

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