The Latin name of this widespread paintbrush, integra, refers to the whole, or unlobed, leaves. It grows to 1 1/2-feet tall, often in clusters, with green to reddish stems covered with fine, woolly-white hair. Note the upper leaf surface is mostly hairless and the bottom woolly. Most Castilleja have parasitic roots that feed on other plants, especially grasses. 

FLOWERS: March–September. A dense, hairy, 1–4-inch (2–10 cm) long spike of showy, entire to  3-lobed red bracts surround small, green, beak-like, pointed flowers which extend beyond the red sepal tube (calyx); all parts covered with fine hair.

LEAVES: Alternate, green to reddish, to 2 3/4 inches (7 cm) long, narrow, linear, often rolled inward along midrib; leaves with smooth upper surface but hairy underneath, margins (usually) without teeth or lobes.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils, meadows, slopes, roadsides; desert grasslands and scrub, pinion-juniper, spruce-fir forests. 

ELEVATION: 4,200–10,700 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Scarlet Paintbrush, C. miniata, grows 1–2-feet tall with lance-shaped leaves, red bracts usually deeply lobed and the upper stem if hairy, not woolly. Desert Paintbrush, C. chromosa, is hairy throughout with stem leaves with long narrow lobes, and often reddish foliage. The leaves and stems of Woolly Paintbrush, C. lanata, in southern deserts and foothills, have a dense woolly covering on both surfaces.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread and common nearly statewide from deserts and grasslands to high mountains (absent in Chaves, Lea, Roosevelt counties).