Great Basin Calico Flower

Downingia laeta (Greene) Greene, Leaflets 2: 45. 1910
Bolelia laeta Greene, Erythea 1; 238. 1893.
Bolelia brachyantha Rydb. Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 1; 483. 1900. (Williams 712, NY!)
Downingia brachyantha Nelson & Macbr. Bot. Gaz. 55; 382. 1913.
Plants few-20 (30) cm. high, entirely glabrous; leaves 0.5-2.0 mm. wide by 5-18 (25) mm. long; inflorescence few-10 cm. long, rather closely 1-10-flowered; flower-bracts elliptic to lanceolate or ovate, obtuse or subacute, 1-4 mm. wide by 7-22 mm. long, usually 3-6 (8) times as long as wide; corolla 4—7 mm. long, glabrous, light blue or purplish, the lower lip with central area white or yellow and with a transverse band of purple at base, this sometimes reduced to two or three purple spots, the tube yellow on lower side below the purple area, (1.0) 1.3-1.6 (2.0) mm. long, measured at dorsal sinus (1.1) 1.5-2.0 mm., funnelform, the lateral sinuses cut about as deeply as the dorsal one or very slightly deeper; two upper lobes ascending (?), lanceolate or triangular, acute, 1-2 mm. wide, 2.0-4.5 mm. long; lower lip concave (?), not reflexed nor forming a sharp angle with the tube, the three lobes oblong, acute, 1.5-3.5 mm. long; filament-tube 1.8-2.5 (2.8) mm. long, glabrous, the filaments united their whole length or nearly so; anther-tube 1.3-2.0 (2.2) mm. long, little or not at all incurved, its long axis nearly or quite parallel with that of the filament-tube; anthers glabrous or ciliate on the backs, the two shorter ones white-tufted at apex and each with a slender hornlike process as well; hypanthium linear, in fruit becoming narrowly subulate or fusiform, terete, bilocular, the placentae axile; mature capsule 1.0-2.0 mm. in diameter by 21-43 mm. in length; lateral walls thin but rather tough and tardily dehiscent, the valves inconspicuous, sometimes appearing as faintly impressed lines; calyx-lobes elliptic, rounded to subacute at tip, 1-2 mm. wide, (2.5) 3-7 (9) mm. long, ascending; seeds not at all or very slightly twisted.
Type locality; Humboldt Wells, Elko County, Nevada, Greene, July 6, 1893 (herb. Greene!). Distribution: Southwestern Saskatchewan to southwestern Wyoming, south-central Oregon, northeastern California, and western Nevada.

Downingia laeta is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family known by the common name Great Basin calicoflower. This showy wildflower is native to western North America from California to Saskatchewan, where it is a resident of riverbanks, ponds, and vernal pool ecosystems. This annual grows on a thick erect stem with a few short, pointed leaves. Atop the stem is usually a single flower, which has an upper lip made up of two narrow, pointed lobes in shades of very light blue or purple, or white, and a lower lip which is a fusion of three lobes in the same color with two bright yellow spots and sometimes some purple or pink blotches or streaking.