Red is not a rare color, and none of the sources behind this answer give a rarity status to a single red species. That makes rare red flowers a question about where a plant grows and what protects it, not a question about shade. A flower is rare when it holds a small range or sits on a conservation list. Color has nothing to do with it.
By the third summer the strip I dug under the kitchen window over the sink had filled in. I planted three reds there, scarlet gilia, scarlet monkey-flower and Eaton's penstemon. All three are tubular, and all three were recorded at Arches National Park in Utah. Hummingbirds work that strip while I stand there washing dishes, and nobody who visits has named one of them yet.
Red keeps evolving in plants, over and over again. A 2016 review by Ng and Smith found red flowers in at least 65 flowering plant families. Inside the nightshade family alone, red showed up on its own at least 30 times. A later sample pulled in 130 red species from 104 genera and 53 families. Those grow on every continent but Antarctica.
The reds most people can name are a short list of globalized ornamentals. Roses and tulips, or a red geranium on the porch step. Those fill every red flower page online, so a regional native looks strange the first time you meet one in the wild. Unfamiliar is not the same as rare. That one mix-up is where most talk of rare red flowers starts.
Uncommon red wildflowers are often just plants with a small audience. Arches National Park lists eight red-flowered species inside that one park, and five of the eight sit in the figwort family. Several carry the long tube a hummingbird feeds from. The park page gives no rarity status for any of them, and no range data either. Read that list as a portrait of one desert park, not a national picture.
Common And Linearleaf Paintbrush
- Family: figwort, and these two are the first pair of the five figwort reds on the park list.
- Flower shape: narrow red tubes, the shape a hummingbird bill fits into.
- Status listed: none. The park page ranks no species on that list as rare.
Eaton's And Utah Penstemon
- Family: figwort again, which brings the group to four of the five.
- Flower shape: red tubes of the classic hummingbird type.
- Where recorded: one park in Utah, so this is not a range for the whole species.
Scarlet Monkey-Flower
- Family: figwort, the fifth of the five and the last of that run.
- Flower shape: red and tubular, built for birds like the rest of the group.
- Name trap: the scarlet in the name reports a color and says nothing about how rare the plant is.
Claretcup Cactus
- Family: cactus, the odd one out on a list run by figworts.
- Flower shape: red, and not the long thin tube the others carry.
- Status listed: none here either, so check a state list before you call it rare.
The family share is worth a look on its own. Paintbrush, penstemon and monkey-flower all build the same long red tube, the classic hummingbird shape. More than half the red in one desert park traces back to a single plant family, and that is what a regional list looks like up close.
Check a real list before you trust a rare tag on a plant page. Your state natural heritage program holds the working status for wild species. A native plant society chapter or the state extension service can help you read that list, and either one can tell you how old the status is. Most pages ranking rare red flowers online are working from a photo.
Ask about native red flowers for your own county and the question turns useful fast. Rarity is local. A species can be everywhere on one side of a state line and protected on the other. The color in the photo tells you nothing either way.
Read the full article: 10 Red Flowers and What Makes Them Red
