46 Nebraskaland • July 2022
o fi nd roundleaf monkey-fl ower (Mimulus glabratus),
do not look high in the trees. Instead, head to the cold,
clear water streams of central and western Nebraska.
The plant's favorite haunts include the slow shallows of
spring-fed Sandhills streams and the sandy-bottomed pools
of spring-branch canyon streams fl owing into the central
Niobrara River. Avoid streams where agricultural runoff has
muddied the waters: You will be hard pressed to fi nd it there.
Often growing partially submerged in water, roundleaf
monkey-fl ower has creeping stems that form loose colonies.
During summer, each leaf cluster sprouts a lone stalk topped
by a single, yellow fl ower. The fl owers, and those of other
monkey-fl owers, have fi ve fused petals that form an upper
and lower lip.
To 16th century Swiss botanist Carl Linnaeus, the lips
formed a smile or grin, so he named the genus Mimulus, from
the Latin word mimus, meaning "grinning comic actor." More
fertile imaginations saw within the fl owers the face of a
monkey, especially when pinched from the sides. Thus, the
common name monkey-fl ower.
While there are more than 100 annual and perennial
species of Mimulus known worldwide, only four perennials
grow in Nebraska.
Though widespread throughout the western United
States and Canada, the yellow-fl owered common monkey-
fl ower (M. guttatus), despite its name, is uncommon in our
state. The plant has been collected from stream shallows in
Dundy, Keith and Garden counties and may occur elsewhere
in southwestern Nebraska, although groundwater pumping
has reduced stream fl ows and has likely caused its decline.
Common monkey-fl ower can be distinguished from roundleaf
monkey-fl ower by the reddish-brown spots on its lower lip
T
A roundleaf monkey-fl ower blooms below a spring seep in the Niobrara River Valley in Brown County.
Nebraska's Monkey-fl owers
Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, Botanist
