LILY FAMILY. Llllaceae. 



bed, is a sight never to be forgotten. Pushing their bright 

 leaves right through the snow they gayly swing their golden 

 censers in the face of winter and seem the very incarna- 

 tion of spring. There are several similar kinds. In the 

 Utah canyons these flowers in early spring are a wonder- 

 ful sight, covering the wooded slopes with sheets of gold, 

 and they seem to me to be the largest and handsomest of 

 their clan, growing at an altitude of six thousand to eleven 

 thousand five hundred feet, and blooming from March 

 to July according to height. Easter Bells is a Utah name. 

 This is the only one of its kind, a won- 

 Hesperocdllis derfully beautiful desert plant, much like 

 undul&ta an Easter Lily. The stout, pale, bluish 



stem, from six inches to two feet tall, has 

 a Delicate "bloom" and springs from a 

 graceful cluster of narrow leaves, which 

 are a foot and a half long, spreading widely, but not lying 

 quite flat on the ground. They are pale bluish-green, 

 with a narrow, crinkled, white border and folded length- 

 wise. The buds are bluish and the lovely flowers are 

 about three inches long and pure-white, delicately striped 

 with pale-green and blue on the outside, with yellow an- 

 thers and a white stigma, and with a papery bract at the 

 base of each pedicel. The flowers are slightly fragrant 

 and become papery and curiously transparent as they 

 wither. In dry seasons these plants do not bloom at all, 

 but the slightest moisture will cause them to send up a 

 stout stem and crown it with exquisite blossoms, which 

 look extraordinarily out of place on the arid desert sand 

 around Yuma and Ft. Mohave. The bulb is eaten by 

 the Indians. 



