PAINTED CUP; INDIAN PAINT BRUSH 



Castilleja miniata Dougl. 

 FIGWORT FAMILY 



That the Figwort family contains many floral oddities is 

 evidenced by the common names of some of its members, such as 

 snapdragon, turtle-head, monkey-flower, owFs clover, elephant's 

 head and so on. Nor are these names so wildly fanciful, since 

 the resemblances are sometimes very real. In the elephant's 

 head for instance, each tiny flower on the long, slender spike 

 imitates the broad spreading ears and the upturned trunk of the 

 elephant in a remarkable manner. 



The Painted Cup, a familiar plant from Manitoba to the 

 Rockies, is curious in a different way. The flowers are borne 

 in dense leafy spikes at the top of a leafy stem, but, being greenish- 

 yellow in color, they are scarcely noticeable among the longer 

 and more brilliantly colored bracts, which look as if they had 

 been dipped in a pot of scarlet paint. Its other common name 

 Indian Paint Brush is therefore more appropriate than Painted 

 Cup. Still, the color of the bracts varies greatly, not only in 

 the several species found in Western Canada, but also among 

 different individuals of the same species, ranging from scarlet 

 and brick-red to rose, pink, and even to white. Individually, 

 the plants are rather coarse but in the mass their effect is beautiful, 

 and many a hillside and prairie seems aflame with them. 



Not the least interesting fact in the life of the paint brush 

 is its deviation from what one might call the standards of common 

 honesty in plant life. For frequently this plant attaches itself 

 to the roots of other plants and steals from them their life juices. 

 In short, it seems to be by instinct, if not always by opportunity, 

 a parasite. Still its moral declension is not complete. For in 

 the case of those plants which are wholly parasitic in nature their 

 low character is usually revealed by the absence of green color 

 in their leaves. But where, as with the paint brush, the theft 

 is incidental, as it were, where the plant can, and to a certain extent 

 does, live by its own exertions there is usually little outward 

 sign of this brand of degeneracy. 



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