Castilleja, the Indian Paintbrush
The April sun rises on a landscape splashed with the colors of Spring, and few wildflowers hold the metaphor better than Indian paintbrush. Known botanically as Castilleja, these low-growing blooms of orange and red (or occasionally yellow) appear like blazing tufts of pigment across the full spectrum of habitats -- from grasslands to coastal bluffs, deserts to vernal pools, lowland bogs to the high Sierra -- a testament to nature's art and design.
Here in the Bay Area, stands of purple owl's clover (Castilleja exserta) rank among our showiest grassland wildflowers, and constitute a primary element for the survival of the federally endangered bay checkerspot butterfly. In the coastal scrub, keep an eye out for Franciscan paintbrush (C. subinclusa ssp. franciscana) with its two-toned flower of crimson and gold, and the shaggier Wight's paintbrush (C. wightii) with blossoms of solid yellow or red. We also enjoy the rare and endemic Tiburon paintbrush (C. affinis ssp. neglecta), whose yellow bracts can be spied on open serpentine slopes of Marin and Santa Clara counties, and nowhere else on earth.
The bright colors of the paintbrush derive not from its flowers but from bracts, the leaf-like structures around the flowers, which grow shorter, wider, and more lobed toward the top, often with color highlights at the tips. This beauty above ground masks a deviousness below – paintbrush is a partial parasite unable to thrive alone in the soil. This clever freeloader takes water and nutrients from the roots of other plants like wild buckwheat, bunchgrass, and sagebrush, its favored hosts.
Some say the common name derives from the Plains Indian legend of an a young boy whose small size prevented him from becoming a warrior, so instead he grew into a painter entrusted with the sacred duty of historian. Using pigments of crushed berries and earth, with animal hides for his canvases, he captured the defining moments of his people so they would be remembered forever. But despite his talents, the artist was unable to paint the sunset, whose complex colors eluded the dull earth tones of his paints.
One night a spirit visited him in his sleep and told him to go look in the hills. Next evening, as the sun began its descent, he walked to the foothills and found a collection of paintbrushes in exactly the colors he needed. He used them to produce a perfect picture of the sunset, then left them where he found them, where they multiplied to cover the hills and valleys with those same vivid shades of red, orange, and gold.