The common name of Scarlet Gilia harks back to when the genus Ipomopsis was included in a more broadly defined Gilia.  Plants in the Boise Front are a bright, solid red, but elsewhere in western North America flower color can vary from white to pink to red, often with red mottling.  Color and other floral features are often used to recognize varieties and subspecies.

Foliage tends to have a distinct skunk-like scent, as alluded to at the end of  Bjornson‘s (1934) discussion of the species in southwestern Idaho:

“Gilia aggregata . . . has too many common names; Fox fire, scarlet trumpet, scarlet gilia, and tim piute are not all of them. Tim piute is an Indian name. The flowers, scarlet in color, are freckled on the corolla lobes. The leaves are more or less compound. It can be found in the mountains. In some places the plants are so abundant that the meadows look red. The bright color and graceful form of the flowers tempt us all to pick a bouquet to take home. However, think first what its odor will be like when confined to a room.”

Scarlet gilia can easily be found at higher elevations in the Boise Front, but no longer in the abundance described by Bjornson.

Bjornson, Bernice. 1934. A Key to the Spring Flora of Southwestern Idaho. Copyright by the author, evidently self-printed.