Castilleja miniata |
Castilleja miniata var. fulva |
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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 |
tawny paintbrush |
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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 4–5 dm; with a taproot. | ||||||||||||
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. |
glabrous or glabrate proximally, hairy distally, hairs sparse, spreading, long, soft to ± stiff, short stipitate-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. |
narrowly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, thin and not fleshy, margins plane, flat, usually 0-lobed, apex acuminate to acute. |
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Bracts | distally pale yellowish, pale orange, or salmon, sometimes pale red, 0–3(–7)-lobed, central lobe sometimes distally apiculate; central lobe apex rounded, lateral ones acute to 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. |
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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. |
20–27 mm; beak 9–11 mm; abaxial lip green, 1–1.5 mm, 10–20% as long as beak. |
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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. |
15–21 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 10 mm, 50–70% of calyx length, abaxial slightly deeper than adaxial, lateral 1–6 mm, 5–30% of calyx length; lobes narrowly lanceolate to narrowly triangular, apex acute to acuminate. |
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2n | = 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, 144. |
= 96. |
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Castilleja miniata |
Castilleja miniata var. fulva |
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Phenology | Flowering Jun–Aug. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Damp low thickets, grassy verges, roadsides, forest edges. | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 600–1600 m. (2000–5200 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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AB; BC; YT |
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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.) |
Variety fulva is found widely in central and northern British Columbia, as well as in the Peace River valley in adjacent west-central Alberta and southern Yukon, substantially but not entirely replacing var. miniata in these regions. The inflorescences are consistently yellow to pale tawny orange within populations and have a distinctive morphology, though overlapped by the wide range of variation in var. miniata. It is not known if the distinctive coloration of var. fulva represents introgression from Castilleja unalaschcensis, or if these populations might have diverged in isolation on a nunatak during the last extensive glaciation, as postulated by F. W. Pennell (1934b). (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. 629. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja > Castilleja miniata | ||||||||||||
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Synonyms | C. fulva | |||||||||||||
Name authority | Douglas ex Hooker: Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 106. (1838) | (Pennell) J. M. Egger: Phytologia 90: 72. (2008) | ||||||||||||
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