PAINTED CUP, SCARLET CUP.
Castilleia coccinea.
Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.
Bryant.
HIS splendidly-coloured plant is the glory and ornament of the plain-lands of Canada. The whole plant is a glow of scarlet, varying from pale flame-colour to the most vivid vermillion, rivalling in brilliancy of hues the scarlet geranium of the greenhouse.
The Painted Cup owes its gay appearance not to its flowers, which are not very conspicuous at a distance, but to the deeply-cut leafy tracts that enclose them and clothe the stalks, forming at the ends of the flower branches clustered rosettes. (See our artist’s plate.)
The flower is a flattened tube, bordered with bright red, and edged with golden yellow. Stamens, four; pistil, one, projecting beyond the tube of the calyx; the capsule is many seeded. The radical or root leaves are of a dull, hoary green, tinged with reddish purple, as also is the stem, which is rough, hairy, and angled. The bracts or leafy appendages, which appear on the lower part of the stalk, are but slightly tinged with scarlet, but the colour deepens and brightens towards the middle and summit of the branched stem.