Penstemon digitalis the plant's cultivars is named Husker Red because of its red foliage that has white or bluish-pink flowers. The Perennial Plant Association chose the Husker Red cultivar of "Penstemon digitalis" as the 1996 Perennial Plant of the Year. The author of the book "Perennial All-Stars" described Husker Red as "a stunning flowering perennial" and that "you can easily see why the Perennial Plant Association chose this perennial above all others". Husker Red was named after the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The other cultivar, Mystica, is green at first and then later changes to red in the fall. There is a hybrid of
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