Erythranthe lewisii

Great purple monkeyflower, lewis's monkeyflower

Family: Phrymaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Great purple monkeyflower is a California native perennial found in streamside and seep habitats throughout the Sierra Nevada, northern Coast Ranges, and Cascade Range at elevations of 650 to 3,100 meters. Flowering from June to August, this plant produces magenta to purple flowers with spreading lips, creating dramatic blooms approximately 25 to 30 millimeters long. Growing with hairy stems 25 to 75 centimeters tall and spreading from underground rhizomes, it forms robust clumps in moist mountain environments. Its leaves are oblong to elliptic, 25 to 75 millimeters long, palmately veined, and typically clasping the stem with a soft, slightly hairy texture. The fruit is a small capsule 6 to 11 millimeters in length, developing after the showy summer flowering period.

Habitat: Streambanks, seeps

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 650-3100 m

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.