Camassia
Edible prairie lily ( Camassia quamash )
The prairie lily ( Camassia ) are a genus of flowering plants in the subfamily of the agave ( Agavoideae ). This genus is native only in North America.
Description
The Camassia species grow as perennial herbaceous plants. These geophytes form ovate to spherical onions as outlasting from standing together individually or in groups. The Onion covers are black or brown. The spiral in a basal rosette leaves are simply standing together, keeled and parallel-veined.
Are formed racemose inflorescences with bracts. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and threefold or radial symmetry. The six more or less the same multiform bloom have colors between white, bright and very dark shades of blue to purple. There are six free stamens present. Three carpels are fused into a superior ovaries; they contain six to 36 ovules. The style is filiform and the scar is three-lobed.
The egg-shaped to almost spherical capsule fruits contain six to 36 blackish seeds.
Use
The onions were an important food of North American peoples.
Species
There are six species of Camassia:
- Camassia angusta ( Engelmann & A. Gray ) Blankinship
- Ordinary prairie lily ( Camassia cusickii S.Watson ), Origin: Oregon
- Camassia howellii S.Watson
- Leichtlin prairie lily ( Camassia leichtlinii ( Baker) S.Watson ), Origin: Canada, USA; with two subspecies: subsp. leichtlinii
- Subsp. suksdorfii ( Greenm. ) Gould
- Subsp. azurea (A. Heller) Gould
- Subsp. quamash
Pictures
Inflorescence of Camassia leichtlini.
Swell
- Tom A. Ranker & Tim Hogan: Camassia in the Flora of North America: Online. (English )
- Walter Erhardt et al: The big walleye. Encyclopedia of plant names. Volume 2 Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart, 2008. ISBN 978-3-8001-5406-7
Further Reading
- Mark Fishbein, Susan R. Kephart, Mike Wilder, Kate M. Halpin, Shannon L. Datwyler: Phylogeny of Camassia ( Agavaceae ) Inferred from Plastid rpl16 Intron and trnd trnY - trnT intergenic spacer trnE - DNA Sequences: Implications for species delimitation. In: Systematic Botany. Volume 35, Number 1, 2010, pp. 77-85 ( DOI: 10.1600/036364410790862588 ).