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Home / Browse / Castilleja / Northwestern Indian Paintbrush (var. dubia)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Castilleja angustifolia — the species. This variety isn’t separately illustrated.
Scrophulariaceae family

Northwestern Indian Paintbrush (var. dubia) Castilleja angustifolia var. dubia variety

Native

Northwestern Indian Paintbrush (var. dubia) is a perennial shrub native to the lower 48 states. It grows to 0.7 ft.

More about this plant

Castilleja angustifolia is a species of wildflower known by the common names northwestern paintbrush and desert paintbrush. It is an herbaceous perennial native to the desert, scrublands, and woodlands of western North America. It grows in hot sandy soils and rock crevices in dry conditions. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 5 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
0.7 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Ground-cover layer — Sits in the ground-cover of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~5 caterpillar species

Castilleja supports ~5 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Castilleja in North America, including:

Amblyptilia pica · Geranium Plume Moth Argyrotaenia franciscana · Orange Tortrix Charidryas palla · brush-footed butterfly Endothenia hebesana · Verbena Bud Moth Euphydryas anicia · Anicia Checkerspot Euphydryas chalcedona · Variable Checkerspot
+ 8 more species →
Euphydryas editha · Bay Checkerspot Euphydryas gillettii · brush-footed butterfly Eupithecia anticaria · geometer (inchworm) moth Eupithecia nimbicolor · geometer (inchworm) moth Grammia nevadensis · Nevada Tiger Moth Grammia oithona · tiger moth Heliothis oregonica · Oregon Gem Heliothis proruptus · owlet moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (14) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[12] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[13] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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