
There is an actual word, hemidemisemiquaver, which means "a half of a half of a half of an eight note" – in other words, a 64th note. And all three are used as prefixes to English words to make them mean half or a partial amount of whatever word to which they are attached. "Semi" is a Latin word meaning half, "Hemi" is a Greek word that also means half, and there is yet a third one, "Demi" which is a French word, and it too means half. Castilleja plants can apparently survive without latching onto existing perennials, but they tend not to grow as robustly if left to their own devices.Ī quick note about the word hemiparasitic: you can also see Castilleja referred to as "semiparasitic." Why? Because both words mean the same thing. This partial freeloading doesn't seem to be particularly harmful to the host plant, though it does cost them some resources, of course. While they have small leaves and do conduct their own photosynthesis to make food, they send their root-like haustoria down into the roots of host plants like Great Basin Sagebrush, California Buckwheat and others, and obtain water, carbon and nutrients for their own use. One of the most interesting things about these feather duster-like flowers is that the plants are hemiparasitic. In the ensuing years, some of these have been demoted to subspecies, while the Owl's Clovers, which were in an entirely different genus called Orthocarpus, have since been added to Castilleja as additional species. When Ernest Twisselmann published his epic Flora of Kern County in 1967, there were considered to be 11 species of Castilleja in Kern County.
#Indian paintbrush flower meaning full
These tend to be upright, feathery flowers in various shades of red, though some are yellow and others appear purple.Ĭastilleja, pronounced "cass-till-LAY-hah," is a confusing genus of plants, partly because botanists are not in agreement about which members are full species, which are subspecies, etc. Among the most beautiful and eye-catching native wildflowers in the Tehachapi Mountains are members of the Castilleja genus, many of them known by a more familiar common name: Indian Paintbrush.
