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Castilleja
Also called Paintbrush, Painted Cup, Indian Paintbrushes, Paintbrushes
Castilleja is a genus of about 200 mostly herbaceous annual and perennial plants, known for brightly colored bracts at the stem tips. They are hemiparasites that attach to the roots of grasses and other plants, so they are grown best in the wild or in mixed native meadow plantings with suitable host species.
Castilleja ( kə-STIL-ee-ə or KAS-til-AY-ə), commonly known as paintbrushes, painted cups, or prairie-fire, is a genus of about 200 species of annual and perennial mostly herbaceous plants native to the west of the Americas from Alaska south to the Andes, northern Asia, and one species as far west as the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia. These plants are classified in the broomrape family Orobanchaceae (following major rearrangements of the order Lamiales starting around 2001; sources which do not follow these reclassifications may place them in the Scrophulariaceae). They are hemiparasitic on the roots of grasses and forbs. The genus was named after Spanish botanist Domingo Castillejo.
Castilleja species are eaten by the larvae of some lepidopteran species, including Schinia cupes (which has been recorded on C. exserta) and Schinia pulchripennis (which feeds exclusively on C. exserta), and checkerspot butterflies, such as Euphydryas species. Pollinators aid these plants in reproduction, with insects visiting the flowers, as well as hummingbirds for some species.
The author Gregory L. Tilford claims that the flowers of Indian paintbrush are edible. However, these plants have a tendency to absorb and concentrate selenium in their tissues from the soils in which they grow, and can be potentially very toxic if the roots or green parts of the plant are consumed. Highly alkaline soils increase the selenium levels in the plants. In addition Castilleja species will take up alkaloids from other plants when parasitizing them.
Christ's Indian paintbrush · Exserted Indian paintbrush · Entireleaf Indian paintbrush · Wholeleaf Indian paintbrush · Wyoming Indian paintbrush
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Castilleja by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
