Castilleja tenuiflora |
Castilleja rubicundula |
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Catalina Indian paintbrush, Santa Catalina Indian paintbrush, Santa Catalina paintbrush |
cream sacs |
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Habit | Herbs, annual, 0.6–6 dm; with a taproot or branched root system. | |||||
Stems | solitary, erect, unbranched, sometimes branched, hairs spreading, short, soft, often mixed with stipitate-glandular ones. |
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Leaves | green to purple-tinged or dark red-brown, linear-lanceolate or distal lanceolate, 2–8(–9) cm, not fleshy, margins plane, flat to slightly curved up, 0–7-lobed, apex acute to acuminate; lobes widely spreading or ascending-spreading, linear, apex acute. |
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Inflorescences | 2.5–24 × 3–4 cm; bracts green throughout, lanceolate to ovate, 5–9-lobed; lobes ascending, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, medium length, arising near mid length, apex acute to acuminate. |
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Corollas | straight, (15–)20–28 mm; tube 8–24 mm; abaxial lip, beak, and proximal part of corolla tube exserted; beak adaxially white, rarely very pale yellow or pale pink-purple, 5–7 mm, inconspicuously puberulent; abaxial lip white, fading to pink to pink-purple, or yellow, fading to white, rarely then to pink or pink-purple, both forms often with purple or red dots at base, inflated, prominent, pouches 3, 8–10 mm wide, 4–6 mm deep, 4–6 mm, 80–100% as long as beak; teeth erect, white or yellow, 0.5 mm. |
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Calyces | green, 8–14 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 3–6 mm, 30–50% of calyx length, all 4 clefts subequal; lobes linear, apex acuminate to acute. |
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Stigmas | ± exserted, as long as or slightly longer than beak and visible from abaxial side. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Castilleja tenuiflora |
Castilleja rubicundula |
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Distribution |
AZ; NM; Mexico
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CA; OR
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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.) |
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). Castilleja rubicundula is separated into two varieties on the basis of flower color, as well as subtle differences in the pouching of the abaxial corolla lip. The ranges of the two varieties are broadly overlapping, but they never grow in the same location. Few intermediate forms have been recorded, though a very unusual population system exists in Santa Clara County, within which virtually all plants exhibit a tricolored corolla sequence, with yellow flowers aging to white and then pink or pink-purple, with all three colors visible on mature inflorescences. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 17, p. 659. | FNA vol. 17, p. 652. | ||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | ||||
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Synonyms | Orthocarpus rubicundulus | |||||
Name authority | Bentham: Pl. Hartw., 22. (1839) | (Jepson) T. I. Chuang & Heckard: Syst. Bot. 16: 658. (1991) | ||||
Web links |