Montana Field Guide

Dwarf Phacelia is an annual that is branched from the base. It has nearly prostrate stems that are up to 2 dm long. The alternate leaves have well-developed petioles and narrowly elliptic blades that are up to 25 mm long. Leaf margins are entire or have a few large, shallow lobes. The foliage has short, spreading hairs. Short-stalked flowers are borne in narrow, 1-sided, curved spikes that unwind as they mature and which originate in the leaf axils. Yellow flowers have a 5-lobed tubular corolla that is 2-5 mm long and 5 strap-shaped, hairy sepals that become longer than the corolla in fruit. Stamens are ca. as long as the corolla tube. The fruit is a many-seeded capsule.

Lesica (2012) treats this species as P. lutea (Hook. & Arn.) J.T. Howell.

Flowering in May or June.

Other prostrate members of Phacelia have more deeply lobed leaves. The yellow flowers are diagnostic for this species. Ours is variety scopulina. Treated as part of P. lutea by some authors.

Habitats in other areas of the species' range are described as "alkaline, usually barren clay or rarely sandy banks and flats in the deserts and foothills."

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus appositus, Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus insularis, and Bombus kirbiellus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Shaw and Taylor 1986, Mayer et al. 2000, Wilson et al. 2010, Pyke et al. 2012, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).