Great red paintbrush is an erect glabrous or slightly pubescent perennial growing to 32" tall.  The stems are not glandular much below the inflorescence.  The lanceolate leaves are entire-margined, ± sessile, alternate, acute-tipped and up to 2" long.  The upper ones may occasionally be lobed.  The flowers are in a showy, bright red, dense terminal cluster, appearing more so because they are subtended by the scarlet-tipped bracts.  The calyx is also scarlet-tipped with sharp pointed lobes, divided 1/2-2/3 in back and even more deeply in front.  The corolla is two-lipped with the galea as long as the tube, green with thin reddish margins, and a stigma that is barely two-lobed. Great red paintbrush grows along streams, wet meadows and other moist places to about 11,000' in montane coniferous forest from San Diego Co. to British Columbia and the Rocky Mountains.  It may be found blooming from May to September.  This picture was taken in the Fish Creek area of the San Bernardino Mts.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Castilleja 2) miniata.
Pronunciation: kas-til-AY-ha min-ee-AY-ta.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.