Penstemon digitalis Penstemon digitalis Penstemon digitalis (foxglove beard-tongue, foxglove beardtongue, or talus slope penstemon) is a plant in the plantain family, Plantaginaceae. The flowers are white and are borne in summer. It is native to eastern Canada and eastern and southeastern United States. "Penstemon digitalis" is a glabrous 3 to 5 foot tall herbaceous plant with opposite, shiny green, simple leaves, on slender, purple stems. The leaves are up to 5 inches long. While upright, the stems average anywhere from 2 to 3 feet tall. The flowering panicle extends to almost one third of the plant's height and has pairs of branches
Radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Plant of substantial contamination from the 1957 plutonium fire until after the highly visible 1969 fire, when civilian monitoring teams confronted government officials with measurements made outside the plant of radioactive contamination suspected to be from the 1969 fire, which consumed hundreds of pounds of plutonium (850 kg). The 1969 fire raised public awareness of potential hazards posed by the plant and led to years of increasing citizen protests and demands for plant closure. Releases from previous years had not been reported publicly prior to the fire; airborne-become-groundborne radioactive contamination extending well beyond the Rocky Flats plant was not publicly reported