Castilleja miniata |
Castilleja coccinea |
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common paintbrush, common red paintbrush, giant red Indian paintbrush, great red paintbrush, scarlet Indian paintbrush, scarlet or common or giant red paintbrush, scarlet paintbrush |
painted-cup, red paintbrush, scarlet Indian paintbrush, scarlet paintbrush, scarlet painted-cup |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, 1.2–8(–10) dm; from a woody caudex (or slender rooting rhizomes in var. dixonii, var. miniata); with a taproot or with slender, branched roots from a rhizome. | Herbs, annual or biennial, 1.2–5(–7) dm; with fibrous roots. | ||||||||||||
Stems | few to many, erect to ascending, rarely proximally decumbent or creeping and rooting at nodes, usually branched, glabrous, glabrate, or hairy, hairs spreading to ± retrorse, short to long, soft to stiff, rarely stipitate-glandular. |
solitary or few, erect to ascending, unbranched, rarely branched, hairs spreading, long, soft, eglandular, others shorter and glandular. |
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Leaves | green to purple, linear to lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, narrowly oblong, or ovate, (1.5–)3–8(–9.5) cm, thin and not fleshy or slightly to moderately thickened and slightly fleshy, margins plane, rarely wavy, flat to involute, whole leaf sometimes recurved downward, 0(–5)-lobed, apex acute to obtuse, sometimes rounded; lobes ascending-spreading, narrowly lanceolate, apex acute. |
green to sometimes brownish, rosette leaves persisting or withered at anthesis, oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 1–3 cm, usually 0-lobed; cauline leaves linear-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 2–7(–8) cm, not fleshy, margins plane, sometimes wavy, involute, 3–7(–9)-lobed, apex acute to acuminate; cauline leaves: lobes spreading to ascending, linear to oblong, (2–)5–25 mm, apex acuminate. |
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Inflorescences | 3–15(–22) × 1.5–5.5 cm, often bearing a thin, white, powdery exudate, especially on bract surfaces; bracts greenish, scarlet, red, red-orange, or pale orange throughout, sometimes pink, magenta, pink-purple, yellow, greenish yellow, white, or salmon throughout, or proximally greenish, distally colored as above, lanceolate to oblong-ovate, 0–5(–7)-lobed, central lobes sometimes distally apiculate; lobes erect, linear to lanceolate, oblong, or oblanceolate, short or medium length, arising near or above mid length, central lobe apex obtuse, rounded, or truncate, lateral ones rounded to acute or acuminate. |
2–35 (longest in fruit) × 1.5–6 cm; bracts proximally greenish to brownish green, distally red, sometimes orange, yellow, or white, lanceolate to obovate, 3(–5)-lobed; lobes spreading-ascending, lanceolate and longer on proximal bracts, becoming oblanceolate, shorter, and wider on distal bracts, arising from distal 3/4 of blade, apex acute to rounded. |
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Pedicels | 0–5 mm. |
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Corollas | slightly curved, 20–48 mm; tube 12–26 mm; abaxial lip usually not exserted, though often visible in front calyx cleft, beak partially to fully exserted; beak adaxially green to yellow-green or whitish, (9–)14–25 mm; abaxial lip incurved or ascending, deep green or green, sometimes deep purple or yellowish, reduced, not inflated, visible in front cleft, 0.5–3.5 mm, 5–20% as long as beak (to ca. 33% as long as beak in some populations of var. miniata); teeth incurved or erect, green or white, 0.7–1.5 mm. |
straight, 18–31 mm; tube 15–18 mm; abaxial lip ± exserted, beak exserted, often whitish, yellowish, or faint dull reddish proximally, adaxially green distally, 7–10 mm; abaxial lip green to yellowish, apex pink to yellow, reduced, ± protuberant, 1.5–4 mm, 20–33% as long as beak; teeth erect, green or yellow, apices white, yellow, or pink, 2–4(–5) mm. |
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Calyces | colored as bracts, 15–38 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 4–24 mm, 35–70% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral (1–)3–8(–12) mm, 5–30% of calyx length; lobes linear or narrowly lanceolate to narrowly triangular, apex acute to acuminate or obtuse. |
colored as bracts, 17–23(–28) mm; abaxial clefts 6–10 mm, adaxial 5–8 mm, clefts 33–50% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 0–1 mm, 0–5% of calyx length; lobes oblong to triangular, apex rounded to truncate, sometimes emarginate. |
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2n | = 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, 144. |
= 24, 46, 48. |
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Castilleja miniata |
Castilleja coccinea |
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Phenology | Flowering Jan–Sep. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Damp or wet meadows, roadsides, prairies, swamps, peatlands, ditches, thickets, dunes, jack pine flats, rocky forests, ledges, sandstone, limestone, or granite. | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–1200 m. (0–3900 ft.) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
AK; AZ; CA; CO; ID; MT; NM; NV; OR; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; ON; SK; YT; nw Mexico
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AL; AR; CT; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OK; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; VA; WI; WV; MB; ON; SK
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Discussion | Varieties 4 (4 in the flora). Castilleja miniata is widely recognized as the common scarlet paintbrush. It is highly variable and has five levels of polyploidy. Nonetheless, it remains fairly well defined morphologically across its wide range. Native Americans use it medicinally. A probable hybrid with C. septentrionalis from southern Nevada was named C. ×porterae Cockerell. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Castilleja coccinea usually has red bracts. Forms with white or yellow bracts have been named but are scattered across the range of the species. However, yellow-bracted forms become markedly more common in populations in the northern portion of the range, especially in the upper midwestern region. Populations of C. coccinea seem ephemeral, disappearing from one site after a few years and appearing in another. It is rare in much of the eastern portion of its range, and apparently is extirpated in Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 17, p. 627. | FNA vol. 17, p. 598. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | ||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Bartsia coccinea, C. ludoviciana | |||||||||||||
Name authority | Douglas ex Hooker: Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 106. (1838) | (Linnaeus) Sprengel: Syst. Veg. 2: 775. (1825) — (as Castilleia) | ||||||||||||
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