BROWN LILY. MISSION-BELLS. BRONZE-BELLS. RICE-ROOT.
Fritillaria lanceolata, Pursh. Lily Family.
Stem.—A foot or two high. Leaves.—In scattered whorls; lanceolate; two to five inches long. Flowers.—One to several; open campanulate; greenish or black-purple; variously checkered or mottled. Perianth-segments.—Strongly arched, with a large oblong nectary. Stamens.—Six. Ovary.—Three-celled. Hab.—The Coast Ranges, from British Columbia to Santa Cruz.
"'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth
Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer."
One of the oddest and most beautiful flowers of our rich woodlands is the brown lily, or Fritillaria. It is unrivaled in elegance, for every line of its contour is a study in grace. Nor do its charms cease with stem and leaf and flower; for, hidden away in the rich leaf-mold, is one of its most beautiful features, its bulb. This is pure, shining white, conical in form, and surrounded by many tiny bulblets, like grains of rice, which crumble away from it at a touch. If you go into the woods in early spring, you will often see certain handsome, broad, shining, solitary leaves, close to the ground, and you will wonder what they are. Often near them there are many tiny leaves of the same sort pushing their way aboveground; and sometimes among them all there is a solitary strong scape, with unfolding leaves and a promise of flowers. This is a colony of the beautiful brown lilies. The tiny leaves are the product of the little rice-grains, and are probably now seeing the light for the first time. Between these and the large leaves the breadth of the hand, are many sizes, in all stages. The broad leaves may be from bulbs four or five years old, but they will send up no blossom-stalk this year; for there is rarely or never a radical-leaf and a blossom-stalk from the same bulb at once.
[BROWN LILY—Fritillaria lanceolata.]
![[BROWN LILY—Fritillaria lanceolata.]](#3624944100741987669_f099.png.id-8493068388683153918.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
When the plant is about to flower, the bulb sends up a tall stalk, with here and there a whorl of shining leaves, hanging at the summit its string of pendent bronze-bells. These are mottled and checkered, and are of varying shades, from dull green to black-purple, and often have a beautiful bloom upon them. Their modest colors blend so nicely into the shadowy scene about, that it is difficult to see them unless the eye is somewhat practiced.
Following the inflorescence comes a beautiful and unique seed-vessel, curiously winged and angled, and of a delicate, papery texture when mature. It contains the thin, flat seeds, neatly packed in six ranks.
The flowers are usually an inch long, though they are sometimes two inches long. A plant was once found three and a half feet high, with a chime of nineteen bells.