The California Coastal Castilleja species complex is a group of perennial Castilleja species with both wide-ranging and narrowly distributed taxa, several of which are of conservation concern. Members of this complex are morphologically similar, overlap in their ecological preferences, and appear to exchange genes when taxa co-occur. As a result, members of this complex are experiencing especially high taxonomic confusion. In addition, variable ploidy levels have been documented for described taxa but the spatial and temporal extent of this variation is unknown. This study aims to perform a comprehensive genetic and morphological approach to characterize diversification in this complex. Central to this work is the development of genomic resources that will enable characterization of polyploid genomes in the complex. This talk will cover early stages of this research project, touching on sampling design and approaches to data collection that will generate comprehensive genomic (including cytological), morphological, and ecological datasets on a per individual basis. Early results of the first field season will be discussed and (I’m sure) plenty of remaining questions will be highlighted.