Castilleja tenuiflora |
Castilleja foliolosa |
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Catalina Indian paintbrush, Santa Catalina Indian paintbrush, Santa Catalina paintbrush |
felt paintbrush, Texas Indian paintbrush, Texas paintbrush, woolly Indian paintbrush, woolly paintbrush |
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Habit | Herbs or subshrubs, sometimes shrubs, perennial, 1.2–6 dm; from a woody caudex; with a taproot. | |
Stems | many, ascending, white or grayish due to hairs branched, much-branched proximally, unbranched to sometimes branched on distal 1/2, also usually with short axillary branches, base often shrubby and with marcescent leaves of previous year, hairs dense, appressed to spreading, medium length, soft, much-branched, eglandular, white-woolly, obscuring surface. |
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Leaves | whitish or grayish, linear to narrowly lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 0.9–5 cm, not fleshy, margins plane, involute, 0–3-lobed, apex obtuse to rounded; lobes divergent, spreading, linear, apex acuminate to acute. |
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Inflorescences | 2.5–20 × 1.5–3 cm; bracts proximally green to dull pale purplish, distally red, scarlet, rose, yellow, orange, or cream, sometimes pink or white, lanceolate to oblanceolate, (0–)3–5-lobed; lobes spreading, or distal ones erect, often oblanceolate, if 5-lobed, distal lobes usually very shallow, long or distal short, proximal bracts arising below mid length, distal ones arising near apex, apex rounded to truncate. |
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Corollas | straight or slightly curved, 16–27 mm; tube (8–)10–12(–14) mm; beak exserted or partially so, adaxially green, (7–)8.5–14 mm; abaxial lip deep green, reduced, 1–3 mm, 20–33% as long as beak; teeth incurved, reduced, green, 0.5 mm. |
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Calyces | proximally green, apices colored as bracts, 14–20(–22) mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 3.5–7(–9) mm, 33–40% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 0(–1) mm, 0(–7)% of calyx length; lobes broadly triangular, apex of lobes and segments broadly rounded to truncate, segments, if present, obtuse. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Castilleja tenuiflora |
Castilleja foliolosa |
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Phenology | Flowering Jan–Jul. | |
Habitat | Chaparral, dry rocky slopes, coastal scrub, open forests. | |
Elevation | 0–1900 m. (0–6200 ft.) | |
Distribution |
AZ; NM; Mexico
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CA; Mexico (Baja California)
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Discussion | Varieties 3 (1 in the flora). Castilleja tenuiflora is common and widespread across the mountains of Mexico, especially in pine-oak-madrone communities at middle elevations, as far south as Oaxaca, where it is found west and north of the Tehuantepec lowlands. There are two varieties of C. tenuiflora endemic to Mexico, while the typical variety crosses into the mountains of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. Considerable local and regional variation exists in C. tenuiflora, but most of this appears to be racial in nature, and additional named varieties are likely not justified. While also commonly herbaceous, C. tenuiflora often forms large, multi-stemmed, subshrub plants with a woody base and ascending to strongly erect and often branched stems. It is valued in Mexican traditional medicine and is under study for potentially useful compounds (M. Jiménez et al. 1995; P. M. Sanchez et al. 2013). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Castilleja foliolosa inhabits chaparral from northern California southward to northern Baja California, west of the Sierra Nevada crest. The inflorescence is usually red or red-orange but can vary to white, yellow, pink, or purple. It is present on Santa Catalina Island in the southern Channel Islands, Los Angeles County, but is replaced in the northern Channel Islands by C. hololeuca, a related shrubby species. Castilleja foliolosa hybridizes with C. martini var. martini in San Diego County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 17, p. 659. | FNA vol. 17, p. 608. |
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja |
Sibling taxa | ||
Subordinate taxa | ||
Name authority | Bentham: Pl. Hartw., 22. (1839) | Hooker & Arnott: Bot. Beechey Voy., 154. (1833) |
Web links |