[Illustration]
[Sidenote: =Twining Brodiaea=
_Brodiaèa volùbilis._ (_Stropholirion Californicum_)
=Pink
Summer
California=]
This is a strange, rather grotesque-looking plant, with its slightly
roughish, leafless, reddish stem contorted into curious curves,
occasionally quite short but usually enormously long, sometimes as
much as eight feet, and twining awkwardly in a snake-like way around
and over the bushes in its neighborhood. There are sometimes a few
long narrow leaves lying on the ground, but when the flower blooms
they usually seem to have withered away. The flower-cluster is quite
compact, sometimes six inches across, comprising from eighteen to
twenty flowers, with several, large, pink, papery bracts. The flowers
are rather pretty, dull pink outside but paler inside, the buds are
deeper and more purplish pink, both of dry papery texture. The flowers
are over half an inch across, their tubes and buds are six-angled, and
they have three stamens with anthers and wings, alternating with three,
notched, petal-like stamens, without anthers. In the spring the stem
grows rapidly for several weeks and then the flower cluster begins to
come out at the tip. If the stem is broken off the flower comes out
just the same and the stem keeps on growing, even if it is brought into
the house. These curious plants are found in the foothills of the Coast
Ranges and the Sierra Nevada Mountains and may be seen in open sunny
places along the stage route from Yosemite to Wawona. In the woods
near Wawona I saw it twining around a very tall white larkspur and
the combination was exceedingly pretty. The capsule is egg-shaped and
pointed, the seeds black and angled.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Twining Brodiaea--Brodiaea volubilis.]
[Illustration]
There are four kinds of Bloomeria, all Californian, resembling
Brodiaea, but the stamens unlike. They have a fibrous-coated, solid
bulb, long narrow leaves, and a bracted cluster of many flowers, at
the top of a tall flower-stalk. The flowers are yellow, with six,
nearly equal, spreading divisions, the six stamens on the base of the
divisions, with slender filaments, which with a microscope are seen to
have a short, two-toothed, hairy appendage at base. These are united
and form a little cup surrounding the base of the stamens. The style is
club-shaped, with a three-lobed stigma. The roundish capsule, beaked
with the style, contains several, angular, wrinkled seeds in each cell.
[Sidenote: =Golden Stars=
_Bloomèria aùrea_
=Yellow
Spring, summer
California=]
In late spring the meadows around Pasadena and other places in the
Coast Range are bright with pretty clusters of Golden Stars. The plant
is from six to eighteen inches tall, springing from a small bulb,
covered with brown fibers, with a long, narrow, grasslike leaf, and a
large flower-cluster, sometimes comprising as many as fifty blossoms,
at the top of the stalk. The flowers, about an inch across, with
pedicels from one and a half to two inches long, are orange-yellow,
the spreading divisions each striped with two dark lines, and the
anthers are bright green. This looks very much like Golden Brodiaea,
but the latter has no cup at the base of the stamens. It grows in the
southern part of California and is abundant wherever it is found. _B.
Clevelandi_ is much the same, but the flowers are striped with green
and the numerous buds are green, so that it is less golden and the
general effect is not so good. It has numerous narrow leaves.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Golden Stars--Bloomeria aurea.]
Triteleias resemble Brodiaeas, but they have six, swinging anthers and
the ovary has a stalk.
[Sidenote: =Indian Hyacinth=
_Triteleìa grandiflòra (Brodiaea Douglasii)_
=Blue
Spring, summer
Northwest and Utah=]
Though the general appearance of the plant is very different, the
individual flowers of this beautiful plant very much resemble the bells
of a Hyacinth, for they have the same waxy, semi-translucent texture.
The bluish-green leaves, folded lengthwise and withering before the
flower, are sometimes a foot long and the flower-stalk often reaches a
height of two feet and bends beneath the weight of its lovely crown of
blossoms. The cluster has four papery bracts at the base and is from
three to four inches across, comprising about a dozen flowers, each
nearly an inch long. They are pale-violet, with a bright-blue mid-vein
on each division, the general effect being blue, with a white pistil
and six stamens in two rows, all with blue anthers and the outer ones
with broad, white filaments. It is wonderful to find these lovely and
exotic-looking flowers, delicately scented, gleaming in the shadow of
a dusky oak thicket or a deep canyon. They last a long time in water,
becoming papery as they wither.
[Sidenote: =White Brodiaea=
_Triteleìa hyacinthìna (Brodiaea lactea)_
=White
Spring
Cal., Oreg., Wash.=]
From one to two feet high, with very pretty flowers, about half an inch
long, delicately striped with green on the outside, with six equal
stamens, their filaments broad, triangular and slightly united at
base, with yellow or purple anthers, and a green pistil. The leaf is
grasslike, but thickish, and as long as the flower-stalk. These flowers
are quite common and last a long time in water.
[Sidenote: =Ithuriel's Spear=
_Triteleìa láxa (Brodiaea)_
=Blue, purple
Spring
Cal., Oreg.=]
Very much like Harvest Brodiaea but rather taller, with more flowers in
the cluster, and less waxy in texture, varying in color from blue to
violet and occasionally white. This is common on hillsides and in adobe
fields. The rather fanciful name was suggested by the spear carried by
Milton's angel Ithuriel.
[Illustration: Indian Hyacinth--Triteleia grandiflora.]
[Illustration: White Brodiaea--Triteleia hyacinthina.