Indian Paintbrush

Thanks!

My little cousin, who was about 50 years older than I, always said, "Indian Paintbrush only grows where an Indian has lived." I think that is pretty much all of Oklahoma.

I have always heard about Indian Paintbrushes but have never seen one. It is beautiful! Is it a wildflower?

It is a wildflower and it blooms in April, May and sometimes continuing into June if the weather is pleasant enough. That is when it blooms down here in southern OK---it may bloom a bit later the further north you go in OK.

Indian paintbrush is an interesting flower that will grow okay on its own, but grows better in mixed plantings of other wildflowers and native prairie grasses where it can attach its roots to those of another plant. (It is not totally parisitic, so maybe hemi-parisitic would be the best description.) The ones in our wildflower meadows (which is just a nicer name for fallow farm land or old cow pastures) generally are blooming at the same time as Texas bluebonnet, blue star grass, the small white native asters, white-flowered yarrow, bluets, native phlox divaricata, and sometimes the pink spring beauties (which in some years finish up earlier than the other wildflowers I listed). I like the way the above flowers are blooming in patriotic shades of mostly red, white and blue with a little pink and purplish-blue in Spring. As we move closer to summer, more yellow-flowered wildflowers begin blooming alongside them.

I'll link their LBJWC listing in case you want to read about their growing requirements and such.

Indian Paintbrush Info from Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

I cut one flower from a field next to a casino near Chickasaw (MS) Ok.

We had them in Colo. to but I didn't realize it until I got out my pics that I've taken of wild flowers in Colo.