Castilleja hololeuca

Island paintbrush, Island Paintbrush

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Island paintbrush is a native perennial herb found in the northern Channel Islands in coastal scrub habitats at elevations below 400 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces orange-red to yellow flowers with bracts 15 to 20 millimeters long, deeply divided into three lobes. Growing 30 to 100 centimeters tall with much-branched stems covered in dense white-felty, intertwined hairs, it has a distinctive woolly appearance. Its narrow leaves are 10 to 50 millimeters long, linear in shape with obtuse tips, arranged along short axillary shoots. The fruit is approximately 10 millimeters long, with seeds featuring a deeply netted coat with ladder-like walls.

Habitat: Coastal scrub

Bloom period: Mar-Aug

Elevation: < 400 m

Bioregions: n ChI.

California counties: Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Amador

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