LILY FAMILY 



LILIACEAE 



WILD HYACINTH 



Camassia esciilenta (Ker) Robinson 



The bulbs of this and related species are commonly 

 called Quamash and are edible. The plant is easily cul- 

 tivated and the Indians used it extensively as food. 



Members of the Lewis and 

 Clark expedition saved their 

 lives by eating Quamash when 

 their food supply ran out. 



Wild Hyacinth is found in 

 moist prairies and meadows and 

 sometimes in open woods from 

 Pennsylvania to Minnesota and 

 south to Georgia and Texas, and 

 should be carefully distinguished 

 from the larger-flowered plant of 

 the northwest. The bulb is i-i>^ 

 inches high and its outer coat is 

 nearly black. The flower stalk is 

 1-2 feet high and sometimes bears 

 I or 2 short, narrow, nearly color- 

 less leaves. The foliage leaves are 

 all basal, grasslike and somewhat 

 shorter than the stalk. 



The pale blue flowers, blooming 

 in April and May, are produced in 

 a rather open raceme 3-8 inches 

 long when in flower and longer in 

 fruit. Each is borne in the axil of a 

 bract. Bracts, pedicels and peri- 

 anth segments are all about three- 

 quarters of an inch long. The 6 

 stamens, attached by slender fila- 

 ments to the bases of the narrowly oblong, 3-5-nerved perianth 

 segments, are somewhat shorter than the latter. The pistil 

 consists of a sessile ovary, a slender style and a 3-lobed stigma. 

 Numerous black, roundish and shining seeds are in each cell of 

 the short, thick, 3-angled capsule the 3 valves ot which are 

 transverselv veined. 



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