General description: Few-branched perennial herb to 2 dm in height from a tap-root. Leaves thick, entire, villous-glandular or glabrous, to 5 cm long and 18 mm wide. Basal leaves ovate spatulate or broadly oblanceolate, narrowed to a petiolar base. The opposite stem leaves lanceolate, sessile, and clasping. Flowers pinkish lavender with deep red guidelines in the throat. The inflorescence glandular-pubescent; the corolla 25 to 37 mm long; the golden yellow bearded staminode exserted.

Look Alikes: Distinguished from other sympatric Penstemon species by the large, pinkish-lavender corollas with dark violet lines in the throat; and exserted, golden-yellow bearded staminode (Spackman et al. 1997).

Phenology: Flowers from late May to early June (Spackman et al. 1997).

Talus slopes and knolls of Green River Formation shales in sparsely vegetated desert shrub and pinyon-juniper communities (Spackman et al. 1997), Common associates include Juniperus osteosperma, Chamaechaenactis, Eriogonum ephedroides, Cercocarpus montanus, Forsellesia meionandra, and Parthenium ligulatum.

Elevation Range: 5,118 - 6,384 feet (1,560 - 1,946 meters)

Colorado endemic: No
Global range: The narrow range of this species is approximately 10km (6mi) wide by 128km (80 mi) long. The area makes-up a shape that looks like a curved band. The species is known from the area in Utah where the Carbon, Duschesne and Uintah counties meet in the Sand Wash and Nine Mile Creek drainages. The range extends east across the Utah border into Colorado and north to Rio Blanco County, Colorado (USFWS 2006).
State range: Known from Rio Blanco County in Colorado. Estimated range in Colorado is 24 square kilometers (9 square miles), calculated in GIS by drawing a minimum convex polygon around the known occurrences (calculated by the Colorado Natural Heritage Program in 2008).

The primary threat at this time is considered to be oil and gas development (Rondeau et al. 2011) leading to potential elimination of occurrences/subpopulations, habitat degradation and fragmentation. It is not known if all of the occurrences are or are not threatened by these activities. The known occurrences in Colorado are within the Raven Ridge BLM ACEC. The plants occur within an area of developed and expanding oil and gas fields with several wells and access roads; additional potential threats include off-road vehicle use, grazing, drought, low seed production, small population size, and noxious weeds.