Lithospermum ruderale (Woolly Gromwell) - photos and description
General: Plants canescent making the foliage greyish-green. Stems leafy, usually several stems forming a dense clump.
Flowers: Many, crowded at the end of stems, the inflorescence leafy. Flowers are pale yellow, funnelform, we measured a flower at 1 cm diameter.
Leaves: Leaves crowded on stem, alternate, edges slightly rolled under. Leaves narrowly lanceolate, leaf highlighted in photo above was 9 cm long and 1 cm wide.
Height: Height listed in Flora of Alberta to 50 cm, we measured plants to 63 cm tall.
Habitat: Dry slopes and grassland in the Cypress Hills.
Abundance: This plant is rare, ranked as an S2 (as of 2021) by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Origin: Native.
When and where photographed: Photos taken June 23rd, meadow on south facing slope, west block of the Cypress Hills, about 450 km southwest of our home in Regina, SK.