Foothills, montane. Shrublands, woodlands, badlands. Spring, summer, fall.
Above: Six Mile Canyon, west of Gallup, New Mexico, May 3, 2015.
Left: Acoma-Zuni Trail, El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico, April 12, 2007.

Castilleja integra grows to a maximum of about twenty inches tall.  Shown at left and above, it is its more typical nine inches. Top photographs show Castilleja integra growing in gravels of the Chinle Formation and at left in early spring it is growing on lichen covered lava at El Malpais. 

The white hairiness of the plant is evident especially if you look at the sides of the stems in the photographs at left and along the main stem in the photograph immediately above. Notice also the tinges of light purple to the leaves. As is true of all Castilleja, the vivid color belongs to the leaves and bracts; the flower is the minute green tube protruding above the red bracts.

Castilleja integra ranges through the southwest in Pinyon/Juniper and Ponderosa forest communities.

"Integra", Latin for "whole", refers to the bracts and leaves which most often are not incised or lobed  --  in contrast to the lobed leaves and bracts of most other species of Castilleja. The red bracts of the plant at left are entire; those in the photograph immediately above are incised although those in the top photograph, growing just 15 feet away, are entire.

Asa Gray named and described this species in 1858 from a specimen collected by Wright and Bigelow in 1852 near El Paso, Texas.

Foothills, montane. Shrublands, woodlands, badlands. Spring, summer, fall.
Acoma-Zuni Trail, El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico, April 12, 2007.

The very fine hairiness of this plant is evident not only on the stem but also on the bracts and calyx.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Castilleja integra