Castilleja grisea

San clemente island paintbrush, San Clemente Island Paintbrush

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.3 · Delisted

San clemente island paintbrush is a rare (CNPS 1B.3) California native perennial found in southern Channel Islands on San Clemente Island in coastal bluff habitats at elevations up to 400 meters. Flowering from February to April, this plant produces pale yellow-green flowers with dull yellow and dark green margins, forming distinctive bracts 10 to 20 millimeters long. Growing 40 to 60 centimeters tall with openly branched stems covered in ash-gray, densely stellate hairs, it develops short leafy axillary shoots. Its leaves are 10 to 50 millimeters long, linear to lanceolate, with zero to three slender lobes. The fruit is 10 to 12 millimeters long with intricately netted seeds featuring ladder-like wall structures.

Habitat: Coastal bluffs

Bloom period: Feb-Apr

Elevation: 400 m

Bioregions: s ChI (San Clemente Island).

California counties: Los Angeles

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.