Scarlet paintbrush

Castilleja miniata. The bright red parts of these plants are not flowers, but rather colorful bracts; the flowers are inconspicuous and green, one above each bract.

All paintbrushes are partially parasitic on the roots of other plants.

Scarlet paintbrush grows in Ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests in the mountain western U.S. and across Canada. This one is growing next to an aspen log in the Jemez Mountains of N.M.