Field Book of Western Wild Flowers

These tall plants carry a brilliant crown of small lilies, glowing like jewels in the dark moist woods they love. The stem is from one and a half to six feet high, covered with a slight down that rubs off, and springs from a small bulb with short, thick scales. The long, pointed, rich-green leaves are in whorls of five or six below, more scattered towards the top of the stalk. The flowers are rather more than an inch long, yellow at the base of the petals, shading through orange to vermilion at the tips and dotted with crimson in the throat. Usually there are six or seven in a cluster, but they have been found with many more in favorable situations and single plants in Yosemite have been seen with as many as thirty blossoms. The capsule is roundish and less than an inch long. These little Lilies are among the most attractive of their kind and grow somewhat freely in the high Sierras to an altitude of seven thousand feet and as far north as Oregon.

Small Tiger Lily – Lilium parvum.

Washington Lily

Shasta Lily

Lílium Washingtoniànum

White

Summer

Cal., Oreg.

In the Sierras, at an altitude of from three to over seven thousand feet, and as far north as the Columbia River, we may be fortunate enough to find this glorious Lily, growing in the forest in moderate shade and protected by the chaparral. It is not rare but nowhere very abundant. I shall never forget finding a group of three or four, growing near a huge fallen tree, in the woods at Wawona near Yosemite, where it is very fine. Their raiment is even more "white and glistering" than the cultivated Easter Lilies. The smooth, stout, purplish stem is from two to five feet high, adorned all the way up with successive whorls of handsome dark-green leaves, three or four inches long, thin in texture, with rippling margins, and shining as if they had been varnished. There are from two to twenty blossoms of shining white, each one from three to four inches long and as much across. The petals are cleft to the base, spreading wide apart when the flower is fully open, sometimes finely dotted with purple, and becoming purplish in fading. The anthers are yellow and the pistil green, and the bulb is large, with thin scales. The scent is delicious, having a whiff of spicy carnation added to the usual lily fragrance. This is never found in the Coast Range and is the only pure white American Lily. Shasta Lily is a variety with a small bulb. L. Párryi, the Lemon Lily, of southern California and Arizona, is similar in the form of its flowers, which are large and clear yellow, dotted lightly with deeper yellow. It grows in shady, moist spots in cool canyons and is very beautiful.

Washington Lily – Lilium Washingtonianum.

Leopard Lily

Lílium pardalìnum

Orange

Summer

Wash., Oreg., Cal.

A magnificent plant, from three to six feet tall, with bright-green leaves, thin in texture, smooth but not shiny, and mostly in whorls. The stem is crowned by a splendid cluster of flowers, usually about half a dozen together, but sometimes as many as thirty on one stalk. They measure three or four inches across and are pale-orange outside and deep-orange inside, spotted with maroon, often blotched with orange-yellow in the throat and tipped with scarlet. The anthers are purplish, changing to reddish-brown, and the pistil is bright-green. These plants often grow in large companies, in moist spots in the mountains, and are unrivaled in decorative beauty and brilliancy of coloring.

Tiger Lily

Lílium Columbiànum

Orange

Summer

Wash., Oreg.

A good deal like the last, but not so large. The petals are more turned back and they are orange-color all over, dotted with dark-red, and the anthers are pale orange-color, ripening to golden-brown. This is common in the Hood River Valley.

Ruby Lily

Chaparral Lily

Lílium rubéscens

White, pink

Summer

Cal., Oreg.

A glorious plant, from two to five feet tall, with leaves mostly in whorls, with rippled edges. The stem bears a magnificent cluster of blossoms, most wonderful in coloring, for the buds and young flowers are white, dotted with purple inside, with yellow anthers and a pale-green pistil, but they gradually change to pink, and deepen to ruby-purple as they fade, and the anthers and pistil also darken in color. The effect of the whole cluster is therefore white at the top, shading through pink to almost crimson below. The flowers are even more deliciously fragrant than the Washington Lily, which they resemble, except that they are not quite so large as the latter and stand more erect and the petals are not so spreading. This usually grows among chaparral in the Coast Ranges.

Tiger Lily – Lilium Columbianum.

Leopard Lily – Lilium pardalinum.

There are many kinds of Fritillaria, natives of the north temperate zone. In the East there are only cultivated ones, such as the familiar Crown Imperial, but we have a number growing wild in the West. They have bulbs with round, thick scales, developing into bulblets and sometimes resembling grains of rice. The flowers are bell-shaped, and nodding, with separate and nearly equal divisions, each with a nectar-spot at its base. They resemble Lilies, but the style is three-cleft, the honey-gland is a shallow pit and the flowers are smaller. The capsule is roundish and six-angled, containing numerous flat seeds. It is conspicuous and perhaps suggested the Latin name, meaning "dice-box."

Bronze Bells

Brown Fritillary

Fritillària atropurpùrea

Brown

Spring, summer

West

This plant is beautiful and decorative, and yet there is something weird about it. The flowers, an inch or more across, grow four or five in a cluster, on a smooth stalk about a foot tall, the long, narrow leaves scattered or in whorls. The bells, nodding on slender flower-stalks, are very unusual in coloring. They are greenish-yellow, streaked and spotted with maroon, and the long curling tips of the three-pronged pistil project like the forked tongue of an adder, so that somehow we feel that, in a previous existence, beautiful as it is now, it may have been a toad or some reptile. When we found this flower growing in the Grand Canyon, halfway down Bright Angel trail, it seemed entirely suitable to the mysterious spirit of the place. The general effect is bronze-color and the attractive name of Bronze Bells, or Mission Bells, is very appropriate. It has a small bulb of numerous, roundish scales. The pistils are often rudimentary.

Yellow Fritillary

Fritillària pùdica

Yellow

Spring

West, except Ariz.

A pretty little flower, a favorite with children, growing on grassy plains, with a smooth stem about six inches tall, and smooth, somewhat thickish, alternate or whorled leaves. The nodding flowers, about an inch long, are usually single, but sometimes as many as six on a stalk, various shades of yellow and orange, tinged with crimson and fading to dull-red. The smooth bulb is pure white, and made up of a number of rounded, thickish scales not resembling grains of rice, so the name Rice Root is not appropriate and the local Utah names, Crocus, Snowdrop, and Buttercup are absurd.

Bronze Bells – Fritillaria atropurpurea.

Yellow Fritillary – Fritillaria pudica.

There are several kinds of Yucca, natives of North and Central America; large plants, with dagger-like leaves, usually with long, thread-like fibers along the margins; flowers with bracts, nodding in a terminal cluster, somewhat bell-shaped, with six, thickish, white divisions; stamens short, with thickened filaments and small anthers; ovary with three united stigmas; capsule containing many, flat, black seeds. The flowers are pollinated by a little white moth, which lays its eggs in the ovary, but previously gathers pollen from many flowers and pushes it against the stigma after the eggs have been laid.

Our Lord's Candle

Spanish Bayonet