Field Book of Western Wild Flowers. Armstrong Margaret

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СКАЧАТЬ these flowers are mostly yellow. The common name, Dog-tooth Violet, is old, and suggested by the little, white, toothlike offshoot often found on the bulb, but of course they are not in the least like Violets. In California they are often called Chamise Lily, and sometimes Adam and Eve, because the plant often bears a large and a small flower at the same time. Mr. Burroughs would like to call it Fawn Lily, on account of the mottled leaves of some kinds, which slightly suggest the ears of a fawn. Adder's-tongue, probably suggested by the long forked pistil, is also an old and usual name.

      

      Muilla maritima.

      Fire-cracker Flower – Brevoortia Ida-Maia.

      Avalanche Lily

      Dog-tooth Violet

      Erythrònium montànum

      White

      Summer

      Northwest

      An exquisite kind, peculiarly graceful in form, with from one to nine, pure-white flowers, nearly three inches across, each petal prettily ornamented at the base with some orange-colored markings, arranged in a symmetrical scalloped pattern. The anthers are orange-yellow, the pistil white, the buds are pinkish and the leaves are very bright green and not mottled. This is very common around Mt. Rainier.

      Glacier Lily

      Dog-tooth Violet

      Erythrònium parviflòrum

      Yellow

      Summer

      Northwest

      A lovely flower, much like E. grandiflorum, but the anthers are white or pale yellow. Around Mt. Rainier these beautiful plants often grow in large patches at the edge of the snow, alongside of the Avalanche Lily, E. montanum, but the two kinds do not seem to mingle.

      Easter Bells

      Dog-tooth Violet

      Erythrònium grandiflòrum

      Yellow

      Spring, summer

      Northwest and Utah

      One of the loveliest of a charming group, growing in rich northern woods. The delicately-scented flowers, from one to six on a stalk, are about two inches across, clear yellow shading to white at the base, with purplish-red anthers, turning brown. A patch of these flowers bordering the edge of a glacier, as if planted in a garden-bed, is a sight never to be forgotten. Pushing their bright leaves right through the snow they gayly swing their golden censers in the face of winter and seem the very incarnation of spring. There are several similar kinds. In the Utah canyons these flowers in early spring are a wonderful sight, covering the wooded slopes with sheets of gold, and they seem to me to be the largest and handsomest of their clan, growing at an altitude of six thousand to eleven thousand five hundred feet, and blooming from March to July according to height. Easter Bells is a Utah name.

      

      Dogtooth Violet – Erythronium grandiflorum.

      

      Avalanche Lily – Erythronium montanum.

      Glacier Lily – E. parviflorum.

      Desert Lily

      Hesperocállis undulàta

      White

      Spring

      Cal., Ariz.

      This is the only one of its kind, a wonderfully beautiful desert plant, much like an Easter Lily. The stout, pale, bluish stem, from six inches to two feet tall, has a delicate "bloom" and springs from a graceful cluster of narrow leaves, which are a foot and a half long, spreading widely, but not lying quite flat on the ground. They are pale bluish-green, with a narrow, crinkled, white border and folded lengthwise. The buds are bluish and the lovely flowers are about three inches long and pure-white, delicately striped with pale-green and blue on the outside, with yellow anthers and a white stigma, and with a papery bract at the base of each pedicel. The flowers are slightly fragrant and become papery and curiously transparent as they wither. In dry seasons these plants do not bloom at all, but the slightest moisture will cause them to send up a stout stem and crown it with exquisite blossoms, which look extraordinarily out of place on the arid desert sand around Yuma and Ft. Mohave. The bulb is eaten by the Indians.

      

      Desert Lily – Hesperocallis undulata.

      Lilies, the "lords of gardens," are perhaps the most beautiful and popular flowers everywhere and there are some wonderful ones in the West. They have tall, smooth, leafy stems, springing from scaly bulbs; large showy flowers, solitary or in terminal clusters; smooth, netted-veined leaves, often in whorls, and leaflike bracts. The flower-cup is funnel-formed, or bell-shaped, and has six, equal, spreading divisions, with a honey-bearing groove at the base of each; the stamens, with long anthers, swinging from the tips of long filaments; a long pistil, with a three-lobed stigma and the capsule oblong, with two rows of flat seeds in each of its cells. There are no true Lilies in Utah.

      Small Tiger Lily

      Lílium párvum

      Orange-red

      Summer

      Cal., Oreg.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ