Castilleja affinis |
Castilleja pulchella |
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California paintbrush, coast Indian paintbrush, coast paintbrush, Indian paintbrush |
beautiful Indian paintbrush, beautiful paintbrush, showy paintbrush |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, 1.4–6 dm; caudex woody; with a taproot. | Herbs, perennial, 0.5–1(–2) dm; from a woody caudex; with a slender 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. |
few to several, erect or ascending, usually decumbent at base, unbranched, sometimes branched, hairs spreading, short and long, soft, mostly glandular. |
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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. |
green to deep purple, linear to broadly lanceolate, 1–3.5(–5) cm, not fleshy, margins plane or wavy, slightly involute, (0–)3–5-lobed, apex acuminate to acute, sometimes obtuse; lateral lobes ascending-spreading, sometimes widely spreading, narrowly lanceolate to linear, mostly short, apex acute. |
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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. |
2–7 × 1.5–3 cm; bracts yellow-green, yellow, pinkish, pale reddish, or purple, sometimes distal margins pale white, oblong to broadly lanceolate to ovate, 0–5-lobed; lobes spreading, linear to narrowly lanceolate, medium length to long, usually arising above mid length, rarely from below mid length, center lobe apex rounded to truncate, lateral ones acute to 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 or slightly curved, 17–22(–25) mm; tube 11–16 mm; subequal to calyx or beak, sometimes abaxial lip, exserted; beak adaxially yellow to green, 4–6(–7) mm; abaxial lip green or yellow, reduced, often visible through front cleft, prominently pouched, thickened, 3–4(–5) mm, 50–67% as long as beak; teeth erect, white, yellow, pink, or purple, 1.5–3 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. |
colored as bracts, sometimes strongly bicolored green or proximally whitish and distally as bract lobes, (12–)13–23(–25) mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 5–11 mm, 45–55% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral (0.5–)1–3(–5) mm, 5–20% of calyx length; lobes broadly triangular, apex obtuse to rounded, rarely acute. |
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2n | = 48, 72, 96. |
= 24. |
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Castilleja affinis |
Castilleja pulchella |
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Phenology | Flowering (May–)Jun–Aug. | |||||||||
Habitat | Moist meadows, turf, rocky slopes and flats, talus, fellfields, subalpine to alpine. | |||||||||
Elevation | 1800–3500 m. (5900–11500 ft.) | |||||||||
Distribution |
CA; nw Mexico
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ID; MT; UT; WY
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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 pulchella is a mostly alpine species of the mountains of western Montana and adjacent Idaho and northwestern Wyoming, as well as in the Uinta Mountains of northeastern Utah. It is similar to and likely shares ancestry with C. chrysantha of the mountains of northeastern Oregon. Castilleja pulchella is variable in color, with inflorescences ranging from pale yellow to purplish, often within the same population. Some lower elevation populations are known. These plants are considerably taller, and they tend to have only yellowish inflorescences. Where the two occur together, C. pulchella occasionally forms hybrids with C. nivea. (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. 648. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | ||||||||
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Name authority | Hooker & Arnott: Bot. Beechey Voy., 154. (1833) | Rydberg: Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 34: 40. (1907) | ||||||||
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