Castilleja affinis |
Castilleja elata |
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California paintbrush, coast Indian paintbrush, coast paintbrush, Indian paintbrush |
Siskiyou Indian paintbrush, Siskiyou paintbrush, slender paintbrush |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, 1.4–6 dm; caudex woody; with a taproot. | Herbs, perennial, 1.9–6.2 dm; from a remote woody caudex; with a taproot. | ||||||||
Stems | few to many, erect to ascending, unbranched or branched at proximal nodes, sometimes with short, leafy axillary branches, hairs sparse to dense, spreading, short and long, soft to stiff, unbranched, sometimes branched, eglandular, sometimes stipitate-glandular. |
solitary, sometimes few, proximally creeping, becoming rhizomatous, distally ascending to erect, unbranched or branched, glabrous proximally, glabrate distally, hairs ascending, medium length, soft, eglandular. |
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Leaves | green or purplish, sometimes red-brown, linear or linear-oblong to broadly lanceolate, 2–13 cm, not or ± fleshy, margins wavy or plane, flat or involute, 0–5-lobed, sometimes with small secondary lobes, short, leafy axillary shoots common, usually conspicuous, apex acuminate or acute to rounded; lobes spreading, linear to lanceolate, lateral lobes almost as wide as mid blade, apex acute to rounded. |
widely spaced on stem, green, linear to lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 1.3–7.2 cm, not fleshy, margins plane, ± revolute, 0-lobed, apex broadly acute to acuminate, distalmost sometimes obtuse. |
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Inflorescences | 3–25(–30) × 1.5–5 cm; bracts proximally green or deep purple, distally red, crimson, scarlet, pink, pinkish purple, pinkish red, or yellow, sometimes rose magenta, red-orange, or orange, oblanceolate or obovate to oblong or lanceolate, (0–)3–5(–7)-lobed; lobes spreading to ascending, linear to obovate, long, proximal lobes at or arising below mid length, apices acute to obtuse, center lobe sometimes rounded. |
2–13.5 × 1.5–4.5 cm; bracts proximally greenish, rarely pink, distally pink, magenta, or purple, sometimes distally buff, dull yellow, cream, or light yellow-orange, ovate to elliptic or lanceolate, 0–5-lobed, sometimes also with 3 small teeth on center lobe; lobes ascending or ± spreading, narrowly lanceolate to oblong, medium length, arising near or above mid length, apex acuminate to acute, sometimes obtuse. |
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Pedicels | 0 mm or nearly so. |
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Corollas | straight or ± curved, 17–40 mm; tube 10–15 mm; beak long-exserted to subequal to calyx, adaxially green, 7–20 mm, puberulent, eglandular; abaxial lip deep green to reddish, brown, or deep purple, reduced, inconspicuous, included in calyx, 1.5–3 mm, 15–25% as long as beak; teeth ascending, green, 0.5–2 mm. |
straight, 15–25 mm; tube 7–12 mm; beak and abaxial lip exserted above calyx lobes or ± pendently exserted from abaxial calyx cleft; beak adaxially green to yellowish, 6–11 mm; abaxial lip white to green, reduced, inconspicuous, pouches 3, small, 0.5–1.5 mm, 10–15% as long as beak; teeth ascending, white to deep green, 0.5–1 mm. |
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Calyces | proximally pale or green, distally as in distal portion of bracts, 14–35 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 6–22 mm, 33–50% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 2–7 mm, 15–25% of calyx length; lobes lanceolate or oblong, apex acute to obtuse or rounded, sometimes curved upward. |
whitish, green, or pink, pale colored ones tending to age pink, lobes as in bracts, 9–17 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 4.5–8 mm, 50% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 2–3 mm, 17–22% of calyx length; lobes linear to oblanceolate, apex acute. |
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2n | = 48, 72, 96. |
= 24. |
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Castilleja affinis |
Castilleja elata |
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Phenology | Flowering May–Aug. | |||||||||
Habitat | Serpentine bogs and wetlands. | |||||||||
Elevation | 50–1900 m. (200–6200 ft.) | |||||||||
Distribution |
CA; nw Mexico
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CA; OR
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Discussion | Varieties 3 (3 in the flora). Castilleja affinis is highly variable and one of the more common paintbrushes at lower elevations in California, west of the Sierra Nevada, from the northern coast south to northern Baja California. Some recent authors (for example, M. Wetherwax et al. 2012) include C. litoralis of the Pacific Northwest coast as a subspecies of C. affinis, but due to the high polyploid nature of C. litoralis and its significantly closer morphological resemblance to C. miniata var. dixonii, that treatment is not followed here. Also see the comments under 62. C. litoralis. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Castilleja elata is endemic to the Siskiyou Mountains of northwestern California and adjacent Oregon. Although often treated as a subspecies of C. miniata, it differs from that species in its shorter corolla beaks and distinctive bimodal coloration, with some populations exclusively pale yellow to pale orange and others pink-purple to magenta, as well as its specialized habitat in serpentine wetlands, where it often grows alongside Darlingtonia californica. Castilleja miniata grows on more mesic to moderately xeric substrates in the general vicinity of C. elata but with no sign of intergradation between the two species. The origin and significance of the two discrete color forms of C. elata deserve further study. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 17, p. 582. | FNA vol. 17, p. 604. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | ||||||||
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Synonyms | C. miniata subsp. elata | |||||||||
Name authority | Hooker & Arnott: Bot. Beechey Voy., 154. (1833) | Piper: Smithsonian Misc. Collect. 50: 201. (1907) | ||||||||
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