Description

General: Lily Family (Liliaceae). This perennial herbaceous plant grows along stream banks and moist meadows below 2,000 m elevation. It has five subspecies (pardalinum, pitkinense (rare), shastense, vollmeri, and wigginsii). The stems are from 3 to 7 feet tall and the leaves appear in 1 to 8 whorls up the stem or are scattered. The leaves are linear to lanceolate, 1-2 dm. long. The branched rhizome is thick and fleshy and densely covered with two-jointed, sometimes three-or four-jointed bulb scales which are clonal. The bell-shaped flowers are one to many on long spreading pedicels. The flowers are pale to bright orange-red with a lighter orange center and purple spots on the lower half. The flowers are arranged in a terminal raceme. The capsule is narrowly oblong, acutely angled and one and one-half inches long and contain flat seeds.