Giant or showy frasera, monument plant, deer’s-ears, elkweed, showy green-gentian

Frasera macrophylla Greene; Swertia radiata (Kellogg) Kuntze, Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 430. 1891; Swertia radiata (Kellogg) Kuntze var. macrophylla (Greene) H. St. John; Tesseranthium radiatum Kellogg; T. speciosum (Douglas ex Grisebach) Rydberg, not S. speciosa Wallich ex D. Don 1836

Herbs monocarpic, 5–20 dm, glabrous or stems and leaves puberulent. Stems 1. Leaf blades not white-margined; basal spatulate or oblanceolate to elliptic-obovate, 7–50 × 1–15 cm, apex rounded to acute; cauline leaves whorled, blade oblong-lanceolate. Inflorescences elongate, open proximally, ± dense dis­tally. Flowers: calyx 10–25 mm; corolla pale yellowish green, purple-dotted, occasionally suffused with purple distally, 12–25 mm, lobes elliptic-oblong to obovate, apex [obtuse or] acute to short-acuminate; androecial corona scales 7–9 mm, deeply multicleft; style slender, distinct; nectaries and foveae 2 per corolla lobe, foveae narrowly elliptic, opening directly adaxial to nectary, each opening with a ± even fringe all around, the pair opening into a green but not rimmed area on the corolla surface. 2n = 78.

Flowering summer. Open woods, montane to sub­alpine meadows; 1500–3500 m; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nev., N.Mex., Oreg., S.Dak., Tex., Utah, Wash., Wyo.; Mexico (Nuevo León, Tamaulipas).

Swertia radiata var. maderensis Henrickson, endemic to Mexico, is conspecific with Frasera speciosa, but the necessary combination in Frasera has not been published. If that is done, our material will become var. speciosa.