Castilleja linariifolia / Wyoming Indian paintbrush

Adjectives: dramatic, hemiparasite, highly visible, native, rocky, showy, silvery leaves

Also known as: narrow-leaved Indian paintbrush, desert paintbrush, Wyoming desert paintbrush, Wyoming paintbrush, linaria-leaved Indian Paintbrush, Indian paintbrush.
See also: Castilleja miniata / Scarlet paintbrush; Castilleja spp. / Indian paintbrush

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The Wyoming paintbrush is a perennial herbaceous plant that grows from a branched caudex. Like other paintbrushes, it is hemiparasitic. Unlike the others, it is also the state flower of Wyoming. This is one of the most widespread of the paintbrushes, found throughout the western US.

Of all the paintbrushes in the Valley, this is the tallest, reaching up to 3 feet with mostly unbranched stems. But it is not a dense canopy; instead, the leaves are sparse. The leaves are much narrower than other species, i.e. C miniata, and generally not lobed, unlike C. covilleana. The leaves range from about 1 to 3 inches long and the edges are rolled upward. According to some reports, they can be silvery, but the only ones I have seen are glabrous, i.e. without hairs.

Like all the paintbrushes, the showy bits that catch your eye are not flowers, but modified leaves, or bracts. They are still considered part of the inflorescence, but not of the flowers per se. Each inflorescence has several dozen bracts.

Once the flowers begin to appear, they consist of a pinkish-red to yellow calyx at the base of and surrounding a yellow-green floral tube. The calyx is cut more deeply on one side than the other. This (I will agree) is very difficult to show in photos. Depending on where you look, these are described as racemes, panicles or spikes. It really doesn’t matter because you will already know this is a paintbrush. The flowers are often hidden by the rolled up corolla apart from at the tip. There, the stigmas protrude from the end of the tubes. At their peak, the flowers extend considerably past the ends of the bracts, unlike the other red species described here.

The Wyoming paintbrush starts a little later than the other two red species on this site and also blooms later. Overall the blooming period runs from June to September. Look for it on rocky slopes and dry plains, often associated with sagebrush scrub or in aspen/conifer forests.