Yellow paintbrush is a weak-stemmed, rather wooly perennial to 2' tall which tends to grow up through the branches of other small shrubs.  It is gray-green and sparsely pubescent with branching hairs.  The leaves are linear and divided into 3-5 ± linear lobes.  The bracts are mostly green and have white-wooly lobes, and the calyx is pale yellow, divided 1/8 in back, 1/4 in front, and about 1/2 on the sides, with the front lobes slightly longer than the back.  The corolla is two-lipped, yellowish, and dorsally somewhat pubescent, and the headlike stigma is barely exserted.  Yellow paintbrush is uncommon but may occasionally be found on flats and ridges from 2500' to 7500' in dry sagebrush scrub and joshua tree woodland ranging from the north slopes of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mts to the Piute Mts and San Luis Obispo Co.  It blooms from April to June.  These pictures were taken in the Antelope Valley.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Castilleja 2) plagiotoma.
Pronunciation: kas-til-AY-ha pla-jee-oh-TO-ma.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.