Subalpine, alpine. Meadows. Summer.
Madden Peak, June 23, 2004.
Kennebec Pass, July 18, 2006.

Castilleja rhexifolia bract colors are most often hot pink but they range from subtle magentas to flaming rose to hot iridescent pink and when they hybridize with Castilleja sulphurea, they also can, as the photographs below indicate, create marvelous blends of soft yellows and purple.  For pure outright amazing color, this Paintbrush is hard to surpass.  And all of these colors are often visible in one small area.  But you will have to hike to meadows in the subalpine and alpine zones where Castilleja rhexifolia joins Buttercups, numerous Sunflowers, Bistorts, King's Crown, and more in one of the finest of all wildflower displays.

Castilleja rhexifolia has a long blooming time, from just after snow melt in June to September.  It grows to twelve inches tall, but on alpine tundra it is no more than a few inches tall.

Lower leaves are often red-tinted and have three prominent veins.  Upper colored bracts are often very shallowly cut into three with the outer two divisions quite small.

As indicated above, Castilleja rhexifolia with its red hues hybridizes with the soft yellow hues of Castilleja sulphurea to produce a wide variety of red/yellow/purple bract and flower colorings.  (But Intermountain Flora indicates that although C. rhexifolia and C. sulphurea "are morphologically indistinguishable" and occupy the same habitats, "there is little evidence of hybridization".)  At its lower limits in mid-mountain altitudes, C. rhexifolia hybridizes with C. miniata.  The resulting flowers often have the wild colors of the former and the larger, more deeply cut bracts of the latter.

"Rhexifolia" is Greek for "broken foliage" and probably refers to the strongly veined leaves and their resemblance to the veins of the eastern U.S. genus, Rhexia.

The genus name, "Castilleja" honors Domingo Castillejo (1744-1793), Spanish botanist and Professor of Botany in Cadiz, Spain.  In the late 1770s Jose Celestino Mutis (who was born in Cadiz, Spain but spent most of his life in Columbia) named a new Columbian genus "Castilleja" to honor his countryman.  He sent the new species and name to Linnaeus' son who published the information in Supplementum Plantarum in 1781.  (More biographical information.