Wyoming Paintbrush

Wyoming paintbrush is a perennial plant that typically grows 18 to 100 centimeters (7–39 in) tall, but can occasionally reach a height of two meters (6+1⁄2 ft). It is usually taller than other species of paintbrush flower. Each plant will have a few to several stems growing straight upwards or leaning out somewhat from the crown and usually branching towards the top. Lower down they can be hairless or puberulent, covered in very short and thin hairs that usually stand straight out from the stem surface. Towards the flowering ends they are sometimes hairless, but more often hispid to villous, covered in bristly hair or ones that are long and soft, but not matted together. None of its hairs are glandular. Underground it has a woody caudex atop its branched or single taproot.

The leaves on Wyoming paintbrush are usually gray-green to more or less yellow, but sometimes can be fairly purple. They measure 1–10 centimeters long, but are only rarely shorter than 2 cm. Usually the leaves will have smooth edges and no lobes, but leaves higher up can sometimes have pairs of narrow side lobes or very rarely all the leaves can have lobes. Usually leaves will have just one pair of side lobes, but very rarely they can have two, giving five lobes in total including the end of the leaf. When lobes are present they spread widely. …

The Wyoming paintbrush is native to every western US state from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, with the exception of Washington state. It is also native to just the state of Sonora in the northwest of Mexico. In Wyoming it is found in most of the state, only absent from eight of the 23 counties, six of them in the eastern part of the state. To the North in Montana it grows from Big Horn County in the south to Missoula County in the west, eight counties in total. In Idaho it is mainly a species of the south, but is found in some of the northern counties including Bonner County near the border in the panhandle. Its range in Oregon covers the southeastern half of the state. Wyoming painbrush grows in California from the Cascade Range, the high Sierra Nevada, and Transverse Ranges and to the east in the Mojave Desert and Modoc Plateau. In Nevada and Utah they are recorded in every county of both states. In Colorado it is found in all parts of the western half of the state and is absent from all counties of the shortgrass prairie. It is found at elevations as low as 600 meters (2,000 ft) to as high as 3,400 meters (11,200 ft). The species is associated with habitats such as the sagebrush steppe, grasslands, and pinyon–juniper woodlands. They often grow on dry rocky slopes, dry plains, talus deposits at the base of cliffs, and in forest openings.

The Edith's checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha) in some areas such as Gunnison County, Colorado feeds nearly exclusively on the Wyoming paintbrush. Other species in the area such as desert paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa) and Rocky Mountain penstemon (Penstemon strictus) have similar nutritional qualities, but the greater and more consistent availability of Wyoming paintbrush such as droughts are thought to have given the butterfly a preference for this paintbrush species.

When options were being considered for a state flower for Wyoming, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard from the University of Wyoming promoted this species over rival candidates including the columbine and fringed gentian. Professor Aven Nelson, a botanist with the University of Wyoming, opposed the selection of a paintbrush as the state flower. First on the grounds that it was difficult for non-botanists to tell one species from another. Second, that as a parasitic plant it had negative associations and could not be easily cultivated in gardens unlike other popular state flowers like the Colorado columbine or California poppy. The State of Wyoming officially adopted the Indian paintbrush ("Castilleja linariaefolia") as the state flower of Wyoming on 31 January 1917. Its seeds are sometimes part of wildflower mixes sold for use in the southwestern United States. Attempts to transplant paintbrush plants from the wild are rarely successful. Among the Tewa from Hano in Arizona the red flowers of the narrowleaved paintbrush are a frequent subject of decorative art. It is painted onto pottery, carved into wood, and imitated in colored yarn. According to some Shoshone people interviewed at Beatty and Tonopah, Nevada during the 1930s it was used as a traditional medicine for venereal diseases. The roots were boiled in water and then small amounts were consumed over a long period of time. …