Rewilding My Lot

I have seen Texas Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa) in large groups beside roadways in Central Texas, often alongside Bluebonnets. I hadn’t seen them up close before now, though.

In my reading about this plant, I found two interesting facts. First is that the colored structures are actually bracts (a type of modified leaf, not a petal), and the true flowers are green and less conspicuous. If I had more than these two, I might have done some dissection to investigate further.

The other interesting thing I learned is that this plant is hemiparasitic, in that when its roots encounter the roots of other plants, especially grasses, the Paintbrush roots will penetrate the “host” roots and take nutrients. If these are stealing nutrients from my Bermudagrass, I am perfectly fine with that.