Calochortus nuttallii / sego lily
- 3 large white petals
- purple spots that border yellow glands
- tangle of hairs (a “beard”) at the base of the petals
- but… very variable arrangement of spots, hairs etc.
- rocky, exposed sites
The Sego lily is a highly visible, although small, eye-grabbing beauty. Unlike most of the flowers on this site and in this area, the lily is a monocot. The leaves are thin with parallel veins, typical of monocots, and easy to overlook. It is only when the flowers appear that we gasp at the beauty. Unfortunately, this species is a bit difficult to distinguish from Mariposa Lily (Calochortus eumycarpus); the differentiation seems to be that the sego lily has “more” linear and “lower” purple spots on the petals.
I tend to think of lilies as being wet area plants, but the sego is found in dry areas… atop ridges and in dry sagebrush communities.
The family itself (the Liliaceae) is considered to be a “catch-all” family, made of many diverse genera with few common characteristics. I wonder if this is not better than the continuous rearrangement of the dicot families, but I am sure it is just a matter of time before we have a half-dozen or more new families out of this.
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