64 Coville The Technical Name of the Camas Plan!. 



A species with flowers from dark blue to white, the bulbs eaten by the 

 aborigines. It apparently ranges from the Cascade Mountains of Wash 

 ington and Oregon westward to the Pacific, northward to Vancouver 

 Island, and southward along the coast to the vicinity of San Francisco. 

 It was described from white-flowered specimens cultivated in Europe 

 from material collected in British Columbia by John Jeffrey in 1851. 



^Perianth clearly irregular, five of its parts ascending, the other deftexed^ 

 all of them 3 to 5-nerved, usually 3-nerved, seldom connivent above the ontr// 

 when withering. 



J Stems few to several in a cluster, commonly 60 to 80 centimeters high ; leaves 

 usually 2 to 3.5 centimeters broad ; capsules obtuse at the apex, much exceeded 

 by their pedicels. 



Quamasia cusickii (Wats.). 



Camassia cusickii Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 22 : 479. 1887. 



The largest species of the genus, its flowers pale blue. The species is 

 known only from the original locality, "slopes of the Eagle Creek [also 

 known as Wallowa and Powder River] Mountains, [north] eastern Ore 

 gon, at 4,000 to 6,000 feet altitude," where it grows "on hillsides instead 

 of in wet meadows," while its bulb is " nauseous, pungent, and inedible." 



t % Stems commonly single, usually 30 to 50 centimeters high; leaves seldom 

 exceeding 2 centimeters in width ; capsules broadly acute at the apex, equaling 

 or exceeding their pedicels. 



Quamasia quamash (Pursh). 



Phalangium quamash Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 1: 226. 1814. 



Quamasia esculenta Raf. Am. Month. Mag. 2: 265. 1818. 



Anthericum esculentum Spreng. Syst. Veg. 2 : 84. 1825. 



Camassia esculenta Lindl. Bot. Reg. 18: t. I486. 1832. 



Camassia quamash Greene, Man. Bay Reg. Bot. 313. 1894. 



Flowers usually dark blue, varying occasionally to white. This is the 

 original camas plant of Lewis and Clark, who brought from the head 

 waters of the Missouri, in western Montana, the specimens on which 

 Pursh's description was based. It extends westward at least to the Cas 

 cade Mountains of Washington and Oregon, and the Sierra Nevada of 

 northern California, reaching southward into northern Nevada and Utah. 

 It grows typically in so-called camas meadows, where the basaltic soil is 

 very soft and wet in spring, but exceedingly hard and dry later in the 

 season. The bulbs are still an important food among the Indians in 

 many localities. 



** Perianth less than 18 millimeters in length. 



f Pedicels longer than the bracts ; anthers about 3 millimeters in length. 



