Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous perennials, to 1 m tall, stems few-branched, yellow to gray-green, becoming purple with age, glabrous to slightly puberulent.

Leaves: Alternate, sessile, linear with 0-3 linear lobes, 20-80 mm long, the margins folded upward.

Flowers: Large and showy with tufted, red, flower-like infloresences at stem tips, corollas with 2 fused upper lip lobes, beak-like with open tips, lower lips reduced, 3-toothed to -pouched, corollas 25-45 mm long, beaks yellow-green and sparsely puberulent above with red margins, lower lips dark green, 2-3 mm long, calyx unequally 4-lobed, 20-35 mm long with acute tips, divided to two-thirds of its length above, to one-third of its length below, the lobes curving upwards and with puberulent surfaces, stamens 4, anther sacs 2, unequal, stigmas slightly 2-lobed, infloresences with subtending, bright red to yellow, narrowly 3-lobed bracts 15-30 mm long, the bracts becoming shorter, wider, and more lobed than the leaves, the mature tips generally cream to red or green, infloresences spike-like, 5-20 cm long and open below.

Fruits: Asymmetric, ovoid, loculicidal capsules 10-15 mm long with 2-4 valves. Seeds many, small, 1.5-2 mm long, brown and with angled edges and a loose-fitting, netted coat, attached at the base.

Ecology: Found on dry plains, rocky slopes, sagebrush scrub or pinyon/juniper woodland communities, Juniper, pine, and spruce-fir forests, from 5,000-11,000 ft (1524-3353 m); flowering April-October.

Distribution: Wyoming to New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California.

Notes: This lovely paint-brush has red infloresences with bright green beaks. This genus is difficult to key correctly, if definite identification is needed, be sure to gather as much of the plant as possible. Look for this species under C. linariaefolia in Kearney and Peebles.

Etymology: Castilleja is named for Professor Domingo Castillejo (1744-1793), a Spanish botanist and instructor of botany at Cadiz, Spain, and linariifolia means with leaves like those of genus Linaria.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher2012