Liliaceae

Meadow death camas has a single stem, eight to twenty inches tall, with long four to twelve inch grass-like leaves at its base. At first the flowers form a rather dense pyramidal cluster. Later the cluster becomes more elongate and the individual flowers more widely spaced. The flowers can be white, cream-colored, or pale yellow.

The brodiaea or wild hyacinth has a cluster of pale to dark blue, tubular flowers with six wavy lobes or “petals” atop a single spindly stem. These stems can grow twelve to eighteen inches tall from a bulb, with one or two grass-like leaves nearly as long as the stem.

One of the first spring flowers in the Sage Hills is the distinctive bright yellow bell. Its nodding bell-shaped flowers grow singly or in pairs on the end of a short stem, four to twelve inches tall. They tend to become more orange as they age.

Sagebrush mariposa lily is showy and grows up to two feet tall, with a beautiful tulip-like flower that displays petals, sepals and stamens in multiples of three. Each plant has one to three flowers, and the lavender petals are pointed at the tip, with a darker violet band at the base.

This small lily grows from a bulb and has one to several white flowers with petals, sepals and stamens in multiples of three. The hairy-edged petals look like a cat’s ear with a purple “eyebrow” at its base.