Up high in the Boise Front, paintbrush season is on! 
These eye-catching plants are one of the highlights of summer hiking. I love them even though they are certainly not easy–or even possible–to grow in a garden. Some native plants just need to be admired in the wild–forget about bringing them home.
There are about 200 species of paintbrush altogether, with at least 2 dozen in Idaho.
Perhaps one has to be a botanist to appreciate the fact that the showy parts of paintbrush are not actually flower petals but “bracts”. Bracts are usually small bits of modified leaves located just below the flowers. Paintbrush breaks the mold with bracts that are so big and showy that they hide whatever little flowers are tucked inside. 
Another odd characteristic of paintbrushes is that they are “hemiparasitic”.  They are not quite parasites but they are partial free-loaders, attaching themselves underground to neighboring plants in order to acquire certain nutrients. That habit is probably part of what makes them a challenge to domesticate.