General: Annual herb; stems erect, 10-40 cm tall, slender, simple or branched above, short-hairy, usually purple-tinged.
Leaves: Alternate, unstalked, linear to lanceolate, 1.5-3.5 cm long, green, short-spreading-hairy and often also glandular-hairy, entire below, 3-cleft above, the upper leaves passing into the wider, 3-lobed bracts of the inflorescence.
Flowers: Inflorescence a dense, ultimately elongate, prominently bracted, densely hairy and glandular-hairy, terminal spike 3-15 cm long, the bracts uniformly green or the upper purple-tinged, glandular-soft-hairy, 10-20 mm long, differing gradually from the leaves, more or less egg-shaped, divided two-thirds of the way down into 3 (5) triangular-lanceolate lobes; corollas rose-purple, hairy, 12-20 mm long, exserted from the bracts, tubular, 2-lipped, the upper lip beaked and hooked, scarcely exceeding the lower lip, the lower lip swollen, pouched, toothless; calyces tubular, 6-10 mm long, green, glandular-hairy, unequally 4-lobed; stamens 4.
Fruits: Capsules, ellipsoid, 5-7 mm long; seeds 8 to 15, about 3 mm long, with tight-fitting, netted, ridged coats.
Notes: This species was formerly known from several locations in the Victoria area but has not been collected there since 1954.
Potentially co-occurring similar species include Castilleja ambigua, C. attenuata, Triphysaria pusilla, and T. versicolor ssp. versicolor. Triphysaria species can be distinguished from Orthocarpus bracteosus by their lower corolla lip, which is strongly three-pouched, and by their anthers, which are one-celled. In Triphysaria and Castilleja, the beak-like upper corolla tips are open and the stigma is expanded, while Orthocarpus has closed tips and a dot-like stigma. The two Castilleja species and Triphysaria versicolor ssp. versicolor have white or yellow corollas in contrast to the rose-purple ones of O. bracteosus. Triphysaria pusilla has red-purple corollas, but they are much smaller (4-6 mm) than the corollas of O. bracteosus (12-20 mm). Without flowers, these taxa can be difficult to distinguish.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
