''Castilleja foliolosa'' is a species of

paintbrush A paintbrush is a brush used to apply paint or ink. A paintbrush is usually made by clamping bristles to a handle with a ferrule. They are available in various sizes, shapes, and materials. Thicker ones are used for filling in, and thinner one ...

, known by the common names felt paintbrush and chaparral paintbrush. It is native to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and northern

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, where it grows in

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean c ...

and rocky desert and mountain slopes.

Description

''Castilleja foliolosa'' is a perennial wildflower that grows up to 60 centimeters tall and is coated in woolly white or gray branching hairs. The leaves are linear in shape and up to 5 centimeters long. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is made up of layers of

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s tipped in bright orange-red to dull yellowish green. Between the colorful bracts appear the nondescript flowers, which are greenish in color and pouch-shaped. The fruit is a capsule just over a centimeter long.

Names

''Castilleja foliolosa'' is known in English by the

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

s of "felt paintbrush", "chaparral paintbrush", or "wooly painted-cup". It is also called "wooly paintbrush", however it shares this name with the species ''Castilleja lanata''.

References

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment: ''Castilleja foliolosa''''Castilleja foliolosa'' Photo gallery
foliolosa Flora of California Flora of Baja California Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Natural history of the Channel Islands of California Natural history of the Mojave Desert Natural history of the San Francisco Bay Area Plants described in 1833 Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Orobanchaceae-stub