Red and Indefinites 



ojV 



Scarlet Painted Cup; Indian Paint-brush 



{Castilleja Coccinea) Figwort family 



^/^^e/^^^—Greenishyellow, enclosed by broad, vermilion, 3-cleft floral 

 bracts ; borne in a terminal spike. Calyx flattened, tubular, 

 cleft above and below into 2 lobes ; usually green, sometimes 

 scarlet ; corolla very irregular, the upper lip long and arched, 

 the short lower lip 3-lobed ; 4 unequal stamens ; i pistil. 

 Stem : i to 2 ft. high, usually unbranched, hairy. Leaves : 

 Lower ones tufted, oblong, mostly uncut ; stem leaves deepfy 

 cleft into 3 to 5 segments, sessile. 



Preferred Habitat— y[e^Ao^s ; prairies ; moist, sandy soil ; thickets. 



Flowering Season — May — ^July. 



Distribution— }A2i\nt to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Kansas, and 

 Texas. 



Here and there the fresh green meadows show a touch of as 

 vivid a red as that in which Vibert delighted to dip his brush. 



" Scarlet tufts 

 Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire ; 

 The wanderers of the prairie know them well, 

 And call that brilliant flower the ' painted cup.' " 



Thoreau, who objected to this name, thought flame flower a 

 better one, the name the Indians gave to Oswego tea ; but here the 

 floral bracts, not the flowers themselves, are on fire. Lacking 

 good, honest, deep green, one suspects from the yellowish tone 

 of calices, stem, and leaves that this plant is something of a thief. 

 That it still possesses foliage, proves only petty larceny against it, 

 similar to the foxglove's (see p. 333). Caterpillars of certain 

 checker-spot butterflies in turn prey upon Castilleja. Under cover 

 of darkness, in the soil below, the roots of our painted cup occa- 

 sionally break in and steal from the roots of its neighbors such 

 juices as the plant must work over into vegetable tissue. There- 

 fore it still needs leaves, indispensable parts of a digestive ap- 

 paratus. Were it wholly given up to piracy, like the dodder, or as 

 parasitic as the Indian pipe, even the green and the leaf that it 

 hath would be taken away from this slothful servant. 



But even without honest leaf green (chlorophyll), we know 

 that plants as low in the scale as fungi often take on the most 

 brilliant of yellows and reds. In the painted cup the bracts, which 

 enfold the insignificant vellowish cloistered flowers like a cape, 

 render them great service'in attracting the ruby-throated humming 

 bird by donning his favorite color. No lip landing place is pro- 

 vided for insects, as in other members of the figwort family de- 

 pendent on bees ; although bumblebees, which desire one, and 



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