Pink to Red Flowers 245 



clasping leaves with smooth even edges. The inflorescence 

 is hairy, the bracts being rarely cleft and usually of a deep 

 crimson hue or sometimes red to rose-colour, while the 

 flowers are greenish-yellow with red margins. This plant 

 is found in abundance in the lower valleys. 



Castillcja lancifolia,, or Lance-leaved Indian Paint Brush, 

 has numerous long narrow leaves terminating in sharp 

 points. These leaves are rather stiff and three-veined. 

 The flowers have a crimson calyx with a green base, a 

 yellowish-green corolla and bright red bracts. 



Castillcja angustifolia var. Bradhiirii, or Bradbury's 

 Painted Cup, may be recognized by its leaves, which are 

 large and cleft above the middle" into three or five unequal 

 lobes, the centre one being oblong and rounded at the apex, 

 and the lateral ones narrower. 



" Flowers that with one scarlet gleam 

 Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 

 To set the hills on fire." 



Thoreau speaks thus of the prairie species: 



" The Painted Cup is in its prime. It reddens the meadow,— Painted 

 Cup meadow. It is a splendid show of brilliant scarlet, the colour of 

 the Cardinal Flowers, and surpassing it in mass and profusion. I do 

 not like the name. It does not remind me of a cup, rather of a flame 

 when it first appears. It might be called Flame Flower, or Scarlet- 

 tip. Here is a large meadow full of it, and yet very few in the town 

 have ever seen it. It is startHng to see a leaf thus brilliantly painted, 

 as if its tip were dipped into some scarlet tincture surpassing most 

 flowers in intensity of colour." 



These words are equally applicable to the mountain Cas- 

 tillejas. Truly the glorious flower-spikes of the Paint 

 Brushes and Painted Cups are like tongues of flame that 

 run burning through the herbage of the hillsides. 



