64 Coville — TJie Technical Name of t lie Camas Plant. 



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

 aborigines. It apparentl}' 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. 



tt I\')'i<i)itlt cleddy irregular, fire of its jxtrts asceiuUng, tlie oOier dejlexcd, 

 all of them 3 to 5-nerved, usualli/ 3-nerved, seldom connivent above the ovary 

 v'lien u'itJiering. 



X iStem.s fell! to several in. a cluster, cominmih/ 60 to SO enitimeters high ; leaves 

 usually ^ to 3.5 centimeters broad ; capsules obtuse at tJie apex, much exceeded 

 by their pedicels. 



Quamasia cusickii (Wats.). 



Cainassia cusickii Wats. Proc. .\m. Acad. 22 : 47i). I.SS7. 



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 G.OOO feet altitude," where it grows " on hillsides instead 

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



tt<SVfW(S commonly single, usually 30 to 50 centimeters high; lea res seldom 

 exceeding 2 centimeters in ividtU ; capsules broadly acute at tlie apex, equaling 

 or exceeding their pedicels. 



Quamasia quamash (Pursli). 



Plndaiigiuin (juamasli Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 1: 22(). 1SI4. 



Quamasia esculenta Jia.L Am. Mouth. Mag. 2: 2(V->. 1818. 



Anthericum esculentum Spreng. Syst. Veg. 2 : S4. 1825. 



Camassia esculenta Liudl. Bot. Reg. 18: /. 14S0. 1832. 



Otmassia. (jaa mash Greene, Man. Bay Reg. Bot. '.]{'.'>. 1804. 



Flowers usually dark l)lue, varying occasionally to white. This is the 

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

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

 Pursh's description was l)ased. 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 IS millimeters in length. 



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



