photo series ~ 05/13/14-07/29/14 ~ Pinnacles National Park - west

woolly yerba santa, woolly Indian paintbrush, California buckwheat

Eriodictyon tomentosum, Castilleja foliolosa, Eriogonum fasciculatum var. foliolosum
Boraginaceae, Orobanchaceae, Polygonaceae
May 13, 2014 to July 29, 2014

Pinnacles National Park - west entrance

Can you see the rhythm of nature's clock?  Look how the paintbrush trades its colors with the CA buckwheat.  I started taking these pictures on a whim and have been pleasantly impressed by the sly seasonal color changes at Pinnacles.  When I parsed these 12 weekly photos into 2 sets every other week, it becomes apparent that the rate of change is not a constant.  Fascinating.

ps 09/10/14 - I changed the var. of CA buckwheat from polifolium to what I believe is the greener, more common one along the road.

woolly Indian paintbrush ~ 06/09/11 ~ Pinnacles

woolly Indian paintbrush
Castilleja foliolosa
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

This is a new paintbrush species for Nature ID. As the name suggests this differs from the regular flavor Indian paintbrush (C. affinis) by having a fine felt covering of hairs and can be more shrub-like. Both species are found at Pinnacles.

seaside painted cup ~ 04/24/11 ~ Carmel Highlands

Monterey paintbrush / seaside painted cup
Castilleja latifolia
CNPS 8th Edition Inventory
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

Have you missed my posts? This is the first day that I've felt somewhat better in 3 weeks (posted 05/10/11). Hooray! This is a new species of paintbrush for Nature ID. Isn't it pretty? I can't believe I haven't posted a picture of it before now. It's a rare plant found only here in CA along the coast. Vern Yadon states in Wildflowers of Monterey County that the seaside painted cup is semi-parasitic on beach sagewort (Artemisia pycnocephala) and the colors can vary from orange, yellow, white, and red. Check out the embedded links in the ID below the pictures above.

Indian paintbrush ~ 05/23/10 ~ Jacks Peak

(pale form, most likely)

(pale form, most likely)

(normal color)

(note the very red stem is somewhat unusual)

Indian paintbrush
Castilleja affinis
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

Given my current confusion over the Castilleja genus, I'm going to leave these mostly unidentified. I suspect I have 3-4 species shown above. The first two pics were the first time I noticed the hemiparasitic nature of paintbrushes as they were well off the ground and growing on top of the unknown shrub. If you look closely at the second picture, there's an immature katydid (and, no, I didn't do it!). Maybe if I'm really nice, I can get Mark Egger to look at my collection of paintbrush pictures.

ps 07/09/10 - After opening a Flickr account, Mark Egger took a look at my request and helped me with the IDs several weeks ago. He believes they're all the same species. I'm still finding it hard to accept, but I trust his expert opinion. Really, what do I know about paintbrushes, other than they're pretty? I've separated out paintbrushes and what I'd consider owl's clovers, in my labels below and in the side bar, despite the common names. Oh, Calflora's lists Castilleja under Scrophulariaceae, but I'm moving them to the Orobanchaceae family. Also, it seems Jepson's online objects to the term "Indian paintbrush," but I don't see anyone knowing what I'm talking about if I say "Lay and Collie's paintbrush." As always, thank you, Mark Egger!

common coast paintbrush
Castilleja affinis ssp. affinis
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

Last year I was too intimidated to ID the paintbrushes. There are 71 records in Calflora for the genus Castilleja. Oy! For this reason, I've held off posting my pics of them. Thanks to actually using a plant list for Fort Ord, I was able to narrow down my search for this paintbrush ID. My second best guess C. wightii ended up being the old name for C. affinis ssp. affinis.

They really are striking, and, no, I did not enhance the color of these pics at all (oh yep, I tried, but the red turns kinda funky with the enhance feature of iPhoto). These pictures were taken under the oak trees, about a 5 minute walk away from the lupine. Fort Ord really is an amazing place! And to think there used to be soldiers in training trampling through all of this, shooting at stuff left and right. We still find lots of empty bullet casings on the paths. I wonder how many of the soldiers got poison oak rashes?

coast paintbrush
Orobanchaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae)

There are several different species of paintbrush in the area and I'm not familiar enough to know which one this is.