Alternate name: Elegant Cluster Lily, Harvest Brodiaea

Family: Liliaceae, Lily view all from this family

Description An umbel of several violet or blue-violet, funnel-shaped flowers at top of a leafless stalk with a few long, very narrow basal leaves that are usually withered by flowering time.
Flowers: 1-1 1/2" (2.5-3.8 cm) long; 6 narrow petal-like segments; inside, alternating with 3 stamens, are flat, white scales separated from, and shorter than, stamens.
Leaves: 4-16" (10-40 cm) long.
Height: 4-16" (10-40 cm).

Flower April-July.

Habitat Habitat:Dry plains and grassy hillsides.

Range Northern Oregon to southern California.

Discussion This plant begins to flower as fields dry out in the early summer. Several species of Brodiaea (pronounced bro-dee'-ah), are similar. In Harvest Brodiaea (B. coronaria), from British Columbia to southern California, the scales between the stamens are concave on their inner side, longer than the stamens and lean toward them. One of the most handsome is Wally Basket, Grass Nut, or Ithuriel's Spear (Trileleia laxa), which grows on heavy soils in grassland or brush from southern Oregon to southern California; it reaches a height of up to 28" (70 cm) and has many flowers in a large umbel, with 6 stamens and beneath the ovary a stalk 2-3 times its length.