Castilleja affinis

Indian Paintbrush is a species native to western North America from Washington to Baja California, where it grows on hills and mountains slopes along the coast and inland. This is a perennial herb growing an erect stem up to about 60 centimeters in maximum height. It is greenish to purple in color and may be hairless to quite hairy. The leaves are variable in shape and up to 8 centimeters long. The flower cluster is a series of leafs in shades of bright red to yellowish. Flowers appearing between the leafs are a bit longer and covered in hairs. They are green to purple lined with red or yellow. The fruit is a capsule just over a centimeter long. There are three subspecies of this plant (ssp. affinis, ssp. litoralis, & ssp. neglecta). Ssp. affinins (Coast Indian painbrush) occurs commonly throughout western North America from Washington to Baja California. Ssp. litoralis and ssp. neglecta are quite rare. Ssp. littoralis (Oregon Coast paintbrush) grows on the coastline of northern California and Oregon and ssp. neglecta (Tiburon paintbrush) is known from only a few occurrences in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and is a federally listed endangered species. Castilleja is a hemi-parasite, meaning that it derives some of its nutrients from a host plant.