LILY FAMILY. Liliaceae. 
w 
Harvest Brodiaea 1n early June, at the time of the hay 
Brodiaza grandi- harvest, these handsome flowers, which 
lira (Hookera _Jook like clusters of little blue lilies, begin 
gee to appear among the dried grass of the hill- 
eens sides and in open places in the woods. 
Cal., Oreg., Wash. They vary in height from a few inches to 
over a foot and the number of flowers in a 
cluster also varies very much. Sometimes there are as 
many as ten of the beautiful blossoms, an inch or more long, 
with pedicels unequal in length and from one to four inches 
long, in a large cluster at the top of the stalk, with several, 
whitish, papery bracts at the base of the cluster. The 
color of the flowers is usually a deep bright blue shading to 
violet and the six divisions grow paler toward the base and 
have a brown stripe on the outside; the buds are greenish, 
striped with brown. The stamens are translucent white, 
three ordinary stamens, with long erect anthers, alternating 
with three without anthers, the latter tongue-shaped and 
petal-like, The leaves, which are thickish and about the 
same length as the stalk, have withered away before the 
flowers bloom. .This plant very much resembles Ithuriel’s 
Spear, Triteleia laxa, but three of the stamens are without 
anthers and the ovary is not on a long stalk. It is the 
commonest kind around San Francisco. B. minor is much 
the same, buta smaller plant with fewer and smaller flowers. 
The three outer divisions are narrow, with pointed tips, 
and the inner blunt and broad, and the sterile stamens are 
notched and longer than the fertile ones. This grows on 
dry hills and plains in middle and southern California. 
Ww 
18 
