[Paintbrushes: The Genus Castilleja East of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington]
The photo at right shows cobwebby paintbrush from Ball Butte, Three Sisters Wilderness, Deschutes NF.....August
22, 1991.
Also known as cotton paintbrush, cobwebby paintbrush is a perennial wildflower with clusters of erect or ascending stems rising 8-25 cm high from a short woody base. The herbage is covered with long, tangled, cobwebby hairs. The leaves are narrowly linear with 1-2 pairs of long, filiform lateral lobes and measure 2-4 cm long.
The inflorescence is a dense spike which elongates to 5-8 cm long. The dull yellowish bracts are lance-oblong to ovate in shape with a pair of linear, spreading lobes. They are roughly equal to the flowers, and wider and shorter than the leaves. The calyx is 12-14 mm long, cleft equally on the two medial surfaces to a bout half its length, and laterally less deeply into linear lobes. The corolla is 12-14 mm long, usually shorter than the calyx. The green galea is about one-fourth the length of the tube while the lower lip is prominent, pouched, and slightly shorter than the galea.
Cobwebby paintbrush may be found on open, rocky or gritty summits, ridges and slopes.
Cobwebby paintbrush may be found in the Cascade Mts. from the Three Sisters Wilderness in Oregon south to Mt. Lassen east into the Warner Mts. of south central Oregon.
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