LILY FAMILY. Lillaceae. 



There are many kinds of Fritillaria, natives of the north 

 temperate zone. In the East there are only cultivated ones, 

 such as the familiar Crown Imperial, but we have a number 

 growing wild in the West. They have bulbs with round, 

 thick scales, developing into bulblets and sometimes resem- 

 bling grains of rice. The flowers are bell-shaped, and nod- 

 ding, with separate and nearly equal divisions, each with a 

 nectar-spot at its base. They resemble Lilies, but the style 

 is three-cleft, the honey-gland is a shallow pit and the flow- 

 ers are smaller. The capsule is roundish and six-angled, 

 containing numerous flat seeds. It is conspicuous and 

 perhaps suggested the Latin name, meaning "dice-box." 



This plant is beautiful and decorative, and 

 Brown* Fritiflary y et there is something weird about it. The 

 Fritillciria flowers, an inch or more across, grow four or 



atropurptirea five in a cluster, on a smooth stalk about a 



? ro . wn foot tall, the long, narrow leaves scattered 



Spring, summer . _f 



West or in whorls. The bells, nodding on slen- 



der flower-stalks, are very unusual in color- 

 ing. They are greenish-yellow, streaked and spotted with 

 maroon, and the long curling tips of the three-pronged pistil 

 project like the forked tongue of an adder, so that somehow 

 we feel that, in a previous existence, beautiful as it is now, it 

 may have been a toad or some reptile. When we found this 

 flower growing in the Grand Canyon, halfway down Bright 

 Angel trail, it seemed entirely suitable to the mysterious 

 spirit of the place. The general effect is bronze-color and 

 the attractive name of Bronze Bells, or Mission Bells, is 

 very appropriate. It has a small bulb of numerous, round- 

 ish scales. The pistils are often rudimentary. 

 Yellow Fritillary A pretty little flower, a favorite with 

 FritillHria pudica children, growing on grassy plains, with a 

 Yellow smooth stem about six inches tall, and 



. smooth, somewhat thickish, alternate or 

 ' whorled leaves. The nodding flowers, 

 about an inch long, are usually single, but sometimes as 

 many as six on a stalk, various shades of yellow and 

 orange, tinged with crimson and fading to dull-red. The 

 smooth bulb is pure white, and made up of a number of 

 rounded, thickisti scales not resembling grains of rice, 

 so the name Rice Root is not appropriate and the local 

 Utah names, Crocus, Snowdrop, and Buttercup are absurd. 

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