Castilleja coccinea (L.) Spreng. of the broomrape family (Orobanchaceae) is a root hemi-parasitic herb. Recent habitat loss and environmental changes have reduced the number of populations drastically in PA and other mid-Atlantic states. To reintroduce the species to more of its native area, a close, but distinct, genetic relative is needed to create hybrids that will better supplement current populations. Current research on the Castilleja coccinea plant will seek to investigate the genetic divergence of Eastern United States and Midwestern populations. This investigation was done using DNA barcoding of DNA samples from eastern US and mid-western states using highly conserved but quickly evolving regions of plant DNA, a chloroplast spacer gene trnL-trnF and a ribonuclear Internal Transcribed spacer region (ITS). Amplified genes are sequenced by sanger sequencing and data will be analyzed using Geneious software. The raw sequences are trimmed and aligned in Geneious and cross referenced with NCBI BLAST (basic local alignment search tool). By aligning genes across species, the clades of the C. coccinea phylogenetic tree can be improved in both divergence specificity and confidence values.  This research work will ideally give insight to what other population could be good germplasm to the Pennsylvania populations for hybridization and reintroduction using identification of close genetic relatives.