TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Perennial; stems clustered, 

 often decumbent at the base and branched above, 1- 

 3 dm tall, purplish, puberulent to villous- 

 hirsute; lower leaves linear, entire, upper ones 

 with 1 or 2 pairs of slender, divergent lobes, 

 densely short-pubescent; bracts yellowish (rarely 

 purplish) , 3- to 9-parted, the lobes shorter and 

 narrower than the mid-blade; flowers rather remote 

 and usually not hidden by the bracts; calyx 10-20 

 mm long, subequally cleft into 4 linear, linear- 

 triangular, or sometimes deltoid segments; corolla 

 15-20 mm long, generally exserted well beyond the 

 calyx, its lower lip prominent, pouched, sometimes 

 purplish, often nearly equaling or exceeding the 

 galea in length, both galea and lower lip more or 

 less strongly puberulent (Hitchcock et al. 1959) . 



SIMILAR SPECIES AND FIELD CHARACTERS: Castilleja 

 longispica can be told from the other pale- 

 flowered species in Montana by a combination of 

 two characters: (1) a calyx that is equally lobed 

 rather than being cleft more deeply on top and 

 bottom than on the sides and (2) a lower corolla 

 lip that is nearly as long as the upper lip 

 (galea) . In the Pryor Mountains, C. pallescens is 

 found in drier sites with more well-drained soils 

 than C. longispica. Castilleja cusickii occurs in 

 more mesic sites than C. longispica. Thus dry, 

 warm slopes or ridge tops with sparse sagebrush 

 will have C. pallescens; moderate slopes with 

 fairly dense sagebrush and Festuca idahoensis will 

 support C. longispica; lower slopes, swales or 

 bottoms with robust grasses, such as Agropyron 

 caninum, will have C. cusickii. 



The relatively long and narrow inflorescence of 

 Castilleja longispica helps to identify it at a 

 distance. It seems to always grow with mountain 

 big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. 

 vaseyana) . 



