Lltt«AKY 

 NEW VOHK 

 BOTAMCAL 



The American Botanist 



vol.. XWIIi N()\1:MI'. I'.K, 1<^22 No. 4 



/ would not say that trees at all 



Were oj our hlood and race. 

 Yet, lingering where their shadows fall 



I sometimes think. ^ trace 

 A kinship, whose far reaching root 



Grew when the World began. 

 And made them best of all things mute 



To be the friends of man. 



— Samuel Valentine Cole. 



THE DEATH CAMAS 



By Lksi.ik L. Haskix 



^ )'(,'. IDBNUS I'diriiosits c«>niiiu)nl\- known a> death canias 

 ^^^ bears an c\il repulalidn \vitli reference in both man and 

 l)east on the Pacific Coast. Its danger to human beings comes 

 from its resemblance to the true ecHiile camas {(Jtiainasia), 

 of the same region. The IncHans recognized its dangerous 

 nature and used great caution to protect themselves from pos- 

 sible poison. To them it was an especial menace since it 

 __, grows in the identical situations favored by the true camus, 

 o which was, and is, one of their principal food plants. P>oth 

 ^ grow in moist meadows and swales, often closely intermingled. 

 ►-J Their 1)ulbs, too, so nearly resemble each other that it is not 

 [3 safe to attempt to distinguish them when severed from the 

 leaves and flower scapes. 



It is true that the bulb of the Zygadenus never seems to 

 attain to quite the size of a well developed Quamasia bulb but 



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