Death Camas

Death Camas

Growing in the same meadow that was once a field of blue camas, the creamy white flowers of the very toxic death camas show themselves after the blue has disappeared. They often grow together this way, and the bulbs are virtually indistinguishable. A good reason to be...
Parasite!

Parasite!

Naked broomrape (Orobanche uniflora) – what a terrible name for a delightful spring flower.  Notice the single flowers (uniflora) on yellow leafless (naked) stems.  Naked broomrape has no need for leaves as it gets its nutrition from other plants and no longer...
Violets are amazing!

Violets are amazing!

Violets are truly wonders of spring. In BC, there are 20 native species with flowers ranging in colour from white to yellow to lavender to, well, violet. Most flower early in spring and their small stature lends us the phrase “shrinking violet”. Ground...

The first flower on a camas plant in the Selkirk College propagation beds. It has been a wet cool spring, and camas are just beginning to flower, two weeks later than usual. The plants have been loving the weather, and growing larger leaves and setting many buds. They...
Chocolate tips

Chocolate tips

Tastes nothing like chocolate! Lomatium macrocarpum is our largest lomatium, with browny purple blooms on large umbels, seen here in flower near South Slocan.