Both Castilleja

Castilleja coccinea vs Castilleja indivisa

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 6 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 6x by our model Same genus Castilleja Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Castilleja coccinea, photographed by Carter Dorscht
fig. a Carter Dorscht, CC0 1.0

Castilleja coccinea

Painted-cup paintbrush
Castilleja indivisa, photographed by Jay Pruett
fig. b Jay Pruett, CC BY 4.0

Castilleja indivisa

Texas Paintbrush

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Castilleja coccinea Castilleja indivisa 6 of 20 (30%)

The confusion runs one way only. The model mistakes Castilleja coccinea for Castilleja indivisa, but not the reverse.

Measured on 38,299 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Orobanchaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Both Castilleja. Congeners, which is why this is hard.
Flowering Peaks in May versus April. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 771 and 1,298.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages