>>2642450more pictures because fuck it, i wasn't going to sleep anyways
This is a White Paintbrush, a rarer flower in the Castilleja genus. There are like 16 different species of Castilleja in British Columbia, and they hybridize freely with eachother, so the variation flower to flower can be incredible. The White Paintbrush however is quite rare.
I found this flower this summer on the southern face of a large mountain towering above subalpine meadows and Engleman Spruce / Subalpine Fir forest. The meadow was irrigated by a snowmelt fed stream springing out from the rocks only a hundred meters above me, surrounding it were nearly endless lush meadows filled to the brim with wildflowers in full bloom. Lupine, Valerian, Arnica, Monkeyflower, Anenome, Groundsel, Cow Parsnip, Aster as far as the eyes can see.
It was like you'd walked right into a Monet painting. The colours are like something you cannot imagine, and in the middle of this all, right next to the bubbling mossy stream, was this small group of white paintbrushes, some pure white, some hybridized with the crimson paintbrush surrounding it, giving it a whitish-pink colour.
We live in a beautiful world
