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Vampire Deception · Street Smart Naturalist

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings,
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: this is David B.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Williams and the podcast of my newsletter,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Street Smart Naturalist, Explorations of the Urban Kind.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I share my observations and adventures with the human
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode focuses on one of my wife's favorite plants, Castileja.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about my work,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: including my next book,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: A Human and Natural History of Washington's Cascades,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: please go to my website, geologywriter.com.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: You will also find a link to my Substack newsletter and my previous five and
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: a half years of newsletters, as well as images tied to this week's episode.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining me on this adventure,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and welcome to Podcast 88 of Street Smart Naturalist Vampire Deception,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: August 20, 2026.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Plants in the genus Castileja have long been one of my wife's favorite wildflowers.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not simply because they are lovely bursts of color exciting the landscape,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: but because of the name.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever we see one,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: we musically intone,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Castillejo, and then giggle because, well, because we think we're being darn cute.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, how often does one have the chance to say a melodic name,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: one derived from the 18th century Spanish botanist Domingo Castillejo?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: For us, it's every time we see one, so perhaps we shouldn't chuckle as often as we do.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not familiar with Castileja,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: you might recognize the common name,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is applied to almost every species within the genus, paintbrush.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: They were long known as Indian paintbrush,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: but fortunately most have dropped the first part of the designation.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Paintbrushes favor the long wavelength of the Roy,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: of Roy G.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Biv fame,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: part of the rainbow,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: dazzling in reds, orange, and yellows, though some can also be white or magenta.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you see one, you can clearly see why the plants merit their common name.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That vivacious color, though, does not come from the flowers, which are inconspicuous and green.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, modified leaves, known as bracts, bestow the color of the paintbrush clan.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: An adaptation such as this is good for the plants because
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: the bracts provide benefits including display of warning signals,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Camouflage of conspicuous reproductive organs and amelioration
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: of external threats such as rain, low temperature, and UV radiation.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Colorful bracts are also a long-distant attractant,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: which appears equally successful whether human or pollinator.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: In this capacity, bracts function like a narcissist.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, look at me!
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Ain't I pretty?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Other classic examples of bracts masquerading as flowers include poinsettias,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: dogwoods, and bougainvillas.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Found from sea to summit,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Castilleja is a rich genus of around 180 notoriously hard-to-distinguish species.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: In 1862,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: the great botanist Asegre wrote that,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: "...the species of this genus are most troublesome and unsatisfactory."
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: A statement still subscribed to by many botanists and plant lovers.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that Castellay are promiscuous to the point that if they were humans,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: we'd question their morals.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they are plants, so we merely question their status.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The result of all this co-mingling are hybrids that don't hue to the hue of their parents.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nor can one rely on morphology or genetics, which taxes even the most determined taxonomists.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, enough of this silly wordplay.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, they be troublesome.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even try to distinguish which species I am seeing.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our most common are Castilleja parviflora,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: which tend to be reddish to magenta, often in the subalpine and alpine zone.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Castilleja miniana, generally scarlet and at all elevations.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Castilleja hispida, scarlet or yellow bracts, and usually found at low to middle elevations.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because of their loose mating habits,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I find that it's simpler and much more enjoying to only say, Castilleja!
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not just deceivers with their colorful bracts, paintbrushes play another trick.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are vampire-like, sucking nutrients and water from other plants.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: In order to extract their host's vitality,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: paintbrushes send out finger-like,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: parasitic tissues known as hastoria and form a root-to-root,
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: one-way subway of sucking of key elements such as carbon and nitrogen.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Paintbrushes, though, do not depend entirely upon their hosts.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: With their green leaves,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: they can also photosynthesize,
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  SPEAKER_00: but decided to go an additional step and evolve the ability
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: to supplement their own resources by taking them from another.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ecologists refer to organisms such as Castileia as hemiparasites or facultive parasites.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Despite their manner of drinking up a host's essential life forces,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: hemiparasites such as Castileia are not all bad.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they reduce their host's reproductive and competitive abilities,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: all of which can be considered negative,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: but hemiparasites also have positive effects.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Studies have found that they enhance nutrient cycling, particularly in nutrient-poor ecosystems.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Intriguingly,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: They do so via leaf litter,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: basically taking nutrients from one host and converting them to a more usable form
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: and releasing them back into the ecosystem when they drop their leaves.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hemiparasites appear to further enhance their surrounding plant communities
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: by interacting with and affecting soil microbes, which we all know is a good thing.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Long looked down upon as detrimental suckers of life,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Castileja are now being thought of as ecosystem engineers or organisms such as pikas
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: that modulate the availability of resources.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: In other words,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: they help a community be a community by performing a role that is neither good
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: nor bad.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Castileja are simply one of the uncountable Interconnected strands of the web
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: of life,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: which evolution has woven together to comprise the beautiful and complex ecosystems
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: that make up our world.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Long live diversity in its many wonderful forms.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once again,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: this is David B.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Williams,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: author and voice of The Street Smart Naturalist,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Explorations of the Urban Kind,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: a weekly newsletter and podcast focusing on the human
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle Puget Sound and the Pacific Northwest.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like more details about my walks, talks,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: and books,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: including In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: along with a link to sign up for my newsletter and podcast,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: check out my website, geologywriter.com.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to slow down, pay attention, and enjoy the world around you.