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.