Castilleja cinerea

Castilleja cinerea NatureServe Explorer Species Reports — NatureServe Explorer is a source for authoritative conservation information on more than 50,000 plants, animals and ecological communtities of the U.S and Canada. NatureServe Explorer provides in-depth information on rare and endangered species, but includes common plants and animals too. NatureServe Explorer is a product of NatureServe in collaboration with the Natural Heritage Network.

ITIS Reports — Castilleja cinerea ITIS (the Integrated Taxonomic Information System) is a source for authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

FWS Digital Media Library — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video.Castilleja cinerea grows in several habitat types, including dry desert and sagebrush scrub, woodland, and coniferous forest. It is also known from the unique quartzite pebble plain habitat in these mountains, which it shares with other endemics such as Arenaria ursina.

This is a perennial herb growing up to 15 centimeters tall and covered in a coat of ash-gray woolly hairs. The leaves are linear or narrowly lance-shaped and one or two centimeters long. The inflorescence is made up of fuzzy dull to bright reddish or purplish pink bracts between which emerge smaller yellowish to greenish flowers. The color of the inflorescence is influenced by the environment of the plant; those with more northern exposures tend to have yellowish flowers and those facing south have more reddish flowers.

Like other Castilleja species, this plant parasitizes other species for water and nutrients; C. cinerea is generally found tapping buckwheats (Eriogonum spp.) and sagebrushes (Artemisia spp.)