Gardening Topic for March 2003
Wildflowers - Camas Lily

by Ray Carando, Master Gardener

The importance of Native Wildflowers became crystal clear to me while reading my son John’s history project on The Louis and Clark Expedition.    In one of Clark’s Journal Entries, June – 1806, He notes that they came out of The Bitter Root Mountains in Winter, exhausted and on the brink of starvation. If not for the generosity of The Salish Native American Tribe the entire party would have been lost. The Natives shared Camas roots and dried meat with them.

The Common Western Camas, Camassia quamash, is a native Lily in the Liliaceace Family. Only one of many Native Plants the Native Americans had been gathering for food and medicine for thousands of years before their first encounter with Louis and Clark. According to The New England Wildflower Society, the flowers of our Native Camas Lily range from pale blue to violet. The lily’s tepals are thin and form a six-pointed star and each cradles a large golden anther.

When Western grasslands were converted to agriculture and open to grazing by European animals, The European domesticated hog quickly developed a sweet tooth for the  bulbs. The loss of ideal growing conditions for the Camas resulted in a decline in their numbers.    The sweet bulbs can be eaten raw and are an excellent source of carbohydrates when slow cooked. They have a creamy texture and taste similar to the chestnut.    The best way to propagate them is to plant the dormant bulb in the fall, like a tulip. A rough rule of thumb is to plant them four times as deep as the bulb is tall.  The plant prefers a site that is moist to wet in the Spring, then dries somewhat in the Summer, since they are Summer dormant.

This native Lily is difficult to propagate from seed and moderately difficult from division.

My source for this article and for more information on Native Plants;

The New England Wildflower Society’s Guide to Growing and Propagating Wildflowers, by William Cullina,, Houghton Mifflin

The Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary

The Garden Help Line, answered by The Pioneer Valley  Horticultural Society, 413-734-2655. (They  have a fundraising Native Plant Sale in the Spring.)