Castilleja tenuis

Hairy indian paintbrush

Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: annual · Native

Hairy indian paintbrush is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada High Country, southern Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, Modoc Plateau, and northern Sierra Nevada Eastern Slope in moist meadows and flats at elevations of 1,000 to 2,800 meters. Flowering from May to August, this plant produces white or yellow flowers with delicate 4 to 5 millimeter straight beaks nestled among green bracts with 3 to 7 lanceolate lobes. Growing with spreading stems 10 to 45 centimeters tall and covered in glandular hairs toward the upper portions, it has a distinctive branching habit. Its lance-linear leaves range from 10 to 40 millimeters long, typically with zero to three narrow lobes. The small seeds have a deeply netted coat that loosely fits around the embryo.

Habitat: Moist flats, meadows

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 1000-2800 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaR, SNH, SnBr (rare), PR (rare), MP, n SNE

California counties: Mendocino, Lassen, El Dorado, Modoc, Plumas, Fresno, San Bernardino, Butte, Madera, Amador, Nevada, Sierra, Tulare, Shasta, Colusa, Placer, Trinity, Siskiyou, Calaveras, Alpine, Glenn, Yuba, Lake, Tehama, Tuolumne, Mono, Mariposa, Kern, San Diego, Del Norte, Inyo, Ventura, San Mateo

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