Penstemon fruticosus is a semi-evergreen shrub or subshrub, a plant that is partly woody especially towards its base, that usually takes the form of a spreading tuft.

[4] Each stem will have two to six pairs of leaves attached on opposite sides with those towards the end clearly smaller than ones towards the base.

[3] They may be lanceolate, oblanceolate, or elliptic; shaped like a spear head, reversed, or with sides like two ellipses.

The staminode does not reach out of the flower opening and is sparsely to densely covered in yellow hairs.

[7] The species was scientifically described and named Gerardia fruticosa in 1813 by the botanist Frederick Traugott Pursh.

[4] The species is native to the Pacific Northwest of North America from Oregon to British Columbia, and east to the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming, Montana, and Alberta.

[3] In the Rocky Mountains it grows in Idaho and Montana, but only reaches as far south as Park County, Wyoming in the state's northwestern corner.

[9] It grows on cliffs, rock outcrops, gravelly slopes, in forest openings, and along roadcuts.