Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 115" 



The Washington Lily 



By Bertha M. Rice 



Our beautiful, fragrant mountain lily, Lilium zvashingtoniannm,; 

 must be, I think, the most beautiful of all our Western lilies. It is 

 said to be the only pure white American lily. 



In all this world there could hardly be a sweeter, fairer flower. 

 There is something singularly impressive about the tall, straight 

 plant, with its handsome whorls of polished, wavy-margined, dark 

 green leaves and its smooth, stout, purple stem, crowned with a radi- 

 ance of glistening white blossoms. The whole attitude of the plant 

 is one of quiet dignity and grace. A feeling of reverence must fill 

 the heart when one is permitted to gaze upon its perfect flowers. 



Never shall I forget the sudden joy which took possession of 

 my soul when my first Easter Lilies unfurled their fragrant chalices 

 of light. They furnished the subject, I believe, of almost my only 

 accepted and published poem ; and the thoughts of those sweet blos- 

 soms have remained with me throughout my whole life, a sacred , 

 and fragrant memory. Since then, I have found this white moun-; 

 tain lily even more impressively beautiful. In our heavenly Father's 

 gardens are blossoms infinitely fairer and finer than were ever 

 planted by mortal man. Up there on the rugged mountainside, 

 towering, head-high, in the wilderness, above the tangled protective 

 shrubbery surrounding it, and swinging its fragrant censers in the 

 glad breezes, grows the real jewel of all wild-flowerdom the fairest, 

 sweetest flower in all the wild gardens of the wide world. 



The Washington Lily is never found in the Coast Range. It is 

 rather widely distributed, but not abundant, in the, Sierra Nevada 

 Mountains, and has been discovered as far south as the mountains 

 in San Diego County, and through mountainous regions northward 

 to the Columbia River. The plants grow from three to eight feet 

 high and bear from a dozen to thirty or forty waxen, white blossoms 

 from three to four inches long, set off by yellow anthers and a green- 

 ish pistil, and are exceedingly fragrant. Very beautiful ones are 

 found in the Yosemite region and near Lake Tahoe. They grow in 

 chaparral thickets and open pine woods up to an altitude of 7,500 

 feet. Small woodland creatures, such as chipmunks and squirrels 

 will eat its young and tender stalks, while bears and Indians have 

 delighted in its large edible bulbs. The Indians, for all their wild 

 natures, exercised discretion and good sense in gathering the choice 

 bulbs from their wild gardens, taking care to leave stock for the next 

 year's harvest. It is our so-called civilized people of today who are 

 carelessly and thoughtlessly destroying the fine wild life about us. 

 Reports come in from all about the State regarding the destruction 

 and unnecessary waste of our native plants ; and I quote from a letter 

 received a few months ago from Dr. Douglas R. Campbell, head of 

 the Botany Department of Stanford University, who says : "I hope 

 something may be done to check the reckless destruction of so many 

 of our choicest wild flowers, such as the Washington Lily. The 

 difficulty is the lack of care in gathering the flowers. If the stalks 



