Castilleja wightii
Wight' indian paint brush
Family: Orobanchaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Wight's indian paintbrush is a California native perennial found in coastal scrub regions of northern California Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, and central California Coast at elevations below 300 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces bright red to yellow flowers in bracts 10 to 25 millimeters long with three distinctive lobes. Growing 30 to 80 centimeters tall with much-branched stems that are yellow-green and tinged with purple, the plant has a densely bristly and glandular-sticky appearance. Its leaves are 20 to 60 millimeters long, generally crowded and lanceolate to nearly ovate, with zero to three lobes. The fruit is 10 to 15 millimeters long with seeds featuring a deeply netted coat that resembles a ladder-like pattern.
Habitat: Coastal scrub
Bloom period: Mar-Aug
Elevation: < 300 m
Bioregions: c&s NCo, n CCo, SnFrB.
California counties: San Mateo, Sonoma, Mendocino, Marin, Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Alameda, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Del Norte, Santa Barbara, Tehama, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, Ventura
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.