There are one or two kinds of Brevoortia.
[Sidenote: =Fire-cracker Flower=
_Brevoòrtia Ida-Màia (Brodiaea coccinea)_
=Red and green
Spring
Cal., Oreg.=]
A handsome plant, most extraordinary both in form and color. The stem
is from one to three feet tall, with a few grasslike leaves, and bears
a large cluster of six to thirteen flowers, one or two inches long,
hanging on slender, reddish pedicels. They have bright-crimson tubes
and apple-green lobes, sometimes turned back, showing the tips of the
three pale-yellow anthers. There are also three stamens without anthers
and broadened so that they look like three white or yellowish petals.
The buds are also crimson, tipped with green, and the whole color
scheme is wonderfully brilliant and striking. This grows in mountain
canyons and on wooded hillsides, blooming in late spring.
* * * * *
There are several kinds of Muilla, much like Brodiaea and very much
like Allium, but with no onion taste or smell.
[Sidenote: =Muilla=
_Muílla marítima_
=White
Spring
Cal., Nev.=]
A slender little plant, sometimes rather pretty, from three to nine
inches tall, with sweet-scented flowers, about three-eighths of an inch
or less across, white or greenish, striped with green outside, with
six, bluish, swinging anthers. This grows in alkaline fields, on sea
cliffs and mesas.
* * * * *
There are a good many kinds of Erythronium, all but one from North
America, and, East and West, they are among our prettiest flowers. They
have deep, membranous-coated, solid bulbs; a pair of netted-veined,
unequal leaves, sometimes mottled with brown; flowers without bracts,
large, nodding and bell-shaped, with usually six divisions, all
colored alike, the tips turning back, each with a nectar-groove, and
each with two or four little scales at base, or only the three inner
divisions with scales; stamens on the receptacle, anthers not swinging;
style more or less three-lobed; capsule more or less oblong and
three-angled. The younger plants are often flowerless, with only one
broad leaf, with a long leaf-stalk. The name is from a Greek word
meaning "red," though 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.
[Illustration: Muilla maritima.