PlantFiles: Wavy-leaved Paintbrush, Applegate's Paintbrush
Castilleja applegatei

After transplanting a local penstemon 'Penstemon labrosus' into my native plant garden from a nearby vacant lot--I noticed the following spring--that a paintbrush was coming up in the middle of the penstemon. I live at 6,750' in the San Bernardino Mountains of So. Calif. and Castilleja applegatei is one of several species of paintbrush that is native here. I've since collected seeds from that original plant and have now established this paintbrush in over 20 locations in my garden. I simply collected the seeds as soon as the stems appeared completely dry and scattered them immediately upon the surface of bare un-amended soil somewhere near a known host plant--such as Wright's Buckwheat--'Eriogonum wrightii'. My original Applegate's Paintbrush is also still flourishing and expanding it's terrritory in my dry rocky soil, but the Scarlet Penstemon from which it sprang seems to have succumbed to the parasitical nature of the castilleja.