Castilleja unalaschcensis |
Castilleja exserta |
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Alaska Indian paintbrush, coastal paintbrush, unalaska paintbrush |
castilleja exserta, escobita, exserted Indian paintbrush, owl's clover, purple owl's-clover, purple painted-cup |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, 2–8 dm; from a short, stout, scaly, many-headed, woody caudex; with rhizomes or branching, woody roots. | Herbs, annual, 0.1–4.5 dm; with fibrous roots. | ||||||||
Stems | few to many, erect to ascending, unbranched or branched distally, glabrate proximally, hairy distally, hairs sparse, spreading to erect, long, soft, eglandular, rarely stipitate-glandular. |
solitary, erect to ascending, unbranched or diffusely branched from near base, hairs spreading, medium length and long, stiff, mixed with short stipitate-glandular ones. |
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Leaves | green, sometimes red-purplish, lanceolate-linear to lanceolate, elliptic-ovate, or ovate, (1.2–)3.5–10 cm, not fleshy, margins plane, sometimes ± wavy, flat to slightly involute, 0(–3)-lobed, apex acuminate to acute; lobes ascending, lanceolate, apex acute to acuminate. |
green, sometimes purple to brownish, linear or ovate to orbicular in outline, (0.8–)1–5(–7.7) cm, not fleshy, margins plane, involute, (0–)3–9(–11)-lobed, sometimes with secondary lobing, apex acuminate to rounded or acute; lobes spreading, filiform or linear to narrowly spatulate, apex acute to acuminate or rounded. |
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Inflorescences | 3.5–18 × 2–6.5 cm; bracts proximally green, distally yellow, pale yellow, whitish, yellow-green, or pale orange, often aging reddish or pink, lanceolate, elliptic, ovate, oblanceolate, or oblong to narrowly obovate, (0–)3–5-lobed; lobes ascending, linear to oblong, short, arising above mid length, apex acute to obtuse. |
1.5–20 × 2–4 cm; bracts proximally greenish, dark purple, brownish purple, or white, distally pink, lavender, magenta, light purple, or white on lobe apices, lanceolate to elliptic or narrowly ovate, (3–)5(–9)-lobed, often with 2–4 secondary lobes; lobes ascending to spreading, linear to filiform or narrowly spatulate, medium length to long, arising below or above mid length, apex rounded to acute. |
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Corollas | straight or slightly curved, 18–28 mm; tube 16–19 mm; beak partially to completely exserted, abaxial lip not exserted; beak adaxially green, 6–13 mm; abaxial lip deep green, reduced, inconspicuous, 1–2 mm, ca. 20% as long as beak; teeth incurved, deep green or white, 0.5–1 mm. |
straight, 12–33 mm; tube 7–20 mm; beak slightly exserted, hooked near apex, adaxially pink-purple to magenta, rarely white, 5–13 mm, margins colored as bracts, densely villous-hairy; abaxial lip proximally pink, purple, or magenta, rarely yellow or white, with maroon or deep purple distal to that and white to yellow or pink distally, often with purple spots, distal pale color often aging deep pink or deep red, strongly inflated, pouches 3, 3–8 mm wide, 3–4 mm deep, 3–9 mm, 67–80% as long as beak; teeth erect, white, yellow, or purple, often with purple or maroon spots, 0.5–2 mm. |
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Calyces | colored as bracts, 15–28 mm; abaxial cleft 12–16 mm, adaxial 8–11.5 mm, clefts 40–50% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 4–10 mm, 20–35% of calyx length; lobes oblong to lanceolate, apex acute to obtuse or rounded. |
colored as bracts, 10–26 mm; abaxial clefts 4–12 mm, adaxial 9–18 mm, abaxial ca. 50% of calyx length, adaxial ca. 67% of calyx length, at least adaxial deeper than others, lateral 2.5–9 mm, 15–45% of calyx length; lobes linear (to narrowly oblanceolate), apex rounded to acute. |
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Filaments | with spreading, long, soft hairs. |
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2n | = ca. 96. |
= 24. |
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Castilleja unalaschcensis |
Castilleja exserta |
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Phenology | Flowering May–Sep. | |||||||||
Habitat | Meadows, dunes, thickets, upper margins of tidal flats, river flats, gravel bars, tundra, open forests, roadsides, coastal to alpine. | |||||||||
Elevation | 0–2100 m. (0–6900 ft.) | |||||||||
Distribution |
AK; BC; YT; Asia (Russian Far East)
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AZ; CA; NM; nw Mexico
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Discussion | Castilleja unalaschcensis is a characteristic meadow species across much of the southern Alaskan coast, including the Aleutian Islands, as well as on the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) and the mainland of western British Columbia and southern Yukon. It is common in the coastal littoral zone and ascends to lower alpine meadow communities. Morphologically, it appears to be a sister species to C. septentrionalis of the Rocky Mountains and boreal sites in eastern North America. A weakly differentiated interior form was described as subsp. transnivalis Pennell. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Varieties 3 (3 in the flora). In addition to the characters in the key, Castilleja exserta is distinguished from the similar C. densiflora by its conspicuously hairy and apically hooked beak. As a result, the capitate stigma is exserted more or less horizontally from the corolla beak. In contrast, C. densiflora has an unhooked, inconspicuously puberulent beak, from which the stigma emerges more vertically. Castilleja exserta hybridizes with C. attenuata in southern California and with C. lineariloba in central California, and it reportedly crosses occasionally with C. densiflora in southern California. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 17, p. 663. | FNA vol. 17, p. 606. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | Orobanchaceae > Castilleja | ||||||||
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Synonyms | C. pallida var. unalaschcensis | Orthocarpus exsertus | ||||||||
Name authority | (Chamisso & Schlechtendal) Malte: Rhodora 36: 187. (1934) — (as unalaschkensis) | (A. Heller) T. I. Chuang & Heckard: Syst. Bot. 16: 657. (1991) | ||||||||
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