FLOWERS: Scarlet flowers are long-tubular and may appear partly two-lipped. Blooming mostly mid spring through early summer. PERENNIAL: Tall, herbaceous wands from a perennial root-stock. Some stems may surpass 1½ m tall; mature plants may have a dozen or more stems from base. LEAVES: Leaves are lanceolate to linear and are opposite on the stems. Leaves and stems are glabrous. RANGE: Fairly common in the mid to upper elevations ( above 600 meters) of the Sonoran Desert along cliff faces and high on wash banks. FRUIT: Dry capsules with a number of seeds. UNARMED. Like most red flowers, the flowers of P. subulatus are highly attractive to hummingbirds. Indeed hummingbirds are the principal, if not only, effective pollinator.

Notes: Corolla glabrous, narrowly tubular, and 2-lipped.Stamens didynamous, the 5th a staminode.Staminode nearly glabrous. References: Kearney & Peebles; Arizona Flora. McDougall; Seed plants of Northern Arizona. ASU specimans