It looks like the classic Indian Paintbrush except it’s yellow. A dense spike of colorful flowers tip erect stems, 10–24-inches tall, sometimes branching. Note the showy bright to pale yellow bracts that surround the less obvious beak-like greenish flowers. Lower stem without little or no hairs, upper stem with long hairs.

FLOWERS: June–September. Cluster spike-like with showy yellow bracts, lance-shaped or tipped with 2 pointed, pitchfork lobes; bracts have green base and underside. The 1/2–1-inch long (16–30 mm) flower is green to pale-yellow and beak-shaped.

LEAVES: Alternate. Blades 3/4–2 3/4-inches long (2–7 cm), narrow to broadly lance-shaped, hairless or with a few scattered short hairs.

HABITAT: Rocky, clay loam, moist soils; ponderosa, aspen forests, subalpine meadows below timberline.

ELEVATION: 9,000–12,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, SD, UT, WA, WY; Canada.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Alpine Paintbrush, C. occidentalis, (see photo below) in northern NM generally above timberline, has densely hairy stems that only reach 2 3/4–7 3/4-inches tall (7–20 cm), and purple-tinged bracts. Yellow Owl-clover, Orthocarpus luteus, widespread in NM mountains, has club-shaped flowers and green bracts.

NM COUNTIES: Northern NM mountains in high-elevation habitats: Colfax, Grant, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Taos, Union.