Castilleja uliginosa

Herbs, perennial, 3–5 dm; from a woody caudex; rhizomatous. Stems several, decumbent proximally and sometimes becoming weakly rhizomatous, becoming ascending to erect, unbranched or often branched proximally, hairs spreading, short and long, soft, mixed eglandular and stipitate-glandular. Leaves green, lanceolate or broadly lanceolate, 3–5 cm, much reduced distally, not fleshy, margins plane, sometimes ± wavy, flat, 0-lobed, apex acute to rounded. Inflorescences 10–30 × 3–4 cm; bracts pale-yellow to cream throughout, or proximally pale greenish near base, distally pale-yellow to cream, broadly lanceolate, 3-lobed; lobes ascending, narrowly lanceolate, long, arising near mid length, apex narrowly acute or acuminate. Calyces colored as bracts, 20–25 mm; abaxial and adaxial clefts 7–14 mm, ca. 50% of calyx length, deeper than laterals, lateral 5–6 mm, ca. 33% of calyx length; lobes linear, apex acute, ciliate. Corollas slightly curved, 22–30 mm; tube 11–15 mm; beak partly exserted, adaxially whitish, yellowish, or greenish, 10–15 mm; abaxial lip green, small, protuberant, 3 mm, ca. 20% as long as beak; teeth erect to incurved, green, to 1 mm.

Phenology: Flowering May–Jun.
Habitat: Margins of wet meadows, marshes, and wet thickets.
Elevation: 40–60 m.

Calif.

Discussion

Castilleja uliginosa is endemic to Pitkin Marsh in Sonoma County. It differs from C. miniata by its uniformly pale yellow inflorescences and pubescent stems, as well as by its disjunct, low-elevation habitat. Much of its available habitat was destroyed by development, and it is apparently now extirpated from the wild. It survives in the form of tissue clones from the last wild plant, backcrossed with C. miniata by L. R. Heckard in the 1980s and maintained since then in the greenhouses at the University of California at Berkeley.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa