USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



summer. The 6-parted, usually blue blossoms, an 

 inch or more across, occur in ample racemes at the 

 top of stalks a foot or two high ; the leaves all radical 

 and grass-like. The bulb somewhat resembles 

 a small onion, but is almost tasteless in the raw state. 

 The range of the plant is from Idaho and Utah west- 

 ward to central California, Oregon and Washington ; 

 and when undisturbed it grows so abundantly in open 

 meadows and swampy lands as to convert them at a 

 distance into the appearance of blue lakes of water. 

 John K. To\\msend, a Philadelphian who published 

 an interesting narrative of a journey to the Rocky 

 Mountains in 1839, has left us a pleasant, old-fash- 

 ioned picture of a Camas feast in central Idaho. 

 '^In the afternoon," he writes, 'Sve arrived at 

 Kamas Prairie, so called from a vast abundance of 

 this succulent root which it produces. The plain is 

 a beautiful level one of about a mile over, hemmed 

 in by low, rocky hills, and in spring the pretty blue 

 flowers of the Kamas are said to give it a peculiar 

 and very pleasing appearance. . . . We encamped 

 here near a small branch of the Mallade River; and 

 soon after all hands took their kettles and scattered 

 over the prairie to dig a mess of Kamas. We were 

 of course eminently successful, and were furnished 

 with an excellent and wholesome meal. When boiled, 



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