Polemonium carneum is a plant native to the northwestern United States west of the Cascade Range in Washington south to the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Common names include royal Jacob's ladder, great polemonium, and salmon polemonium. It grows in the lowlands and in prairies to moderate elevations in the mountains, and inhabits woody thickets, open and moist forests, prairie edges, and roadsides. This is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing one or more stems decumbent in form or erect to a maximum height near one meter. The leaves are compound with up to 21 leaflets each. The sticky-haired leaflets are somewhat lance-shaped and up to 4 centimeters long. The flower cluster is an open, spreading cluster of 3 to 7 flowers each borne on a thin peduncle. The flower is widely bell-shaped with a five-lobed corolla that may spread to nearly 3 centimeters wide. The flower corolla may be any shade of pale pink, salmon pink, yellow, or pale lavender to medium purple.