Closely resembling the above, is B. multiflora, Benth. It has, however, but three stamens, the other three being represented by staminodia, which are entire and of the same length as the stamens.
B. congesta, Smith, another similar species, is often four feet tall. It also has three stamens and three staminodia; but the latter are deeply cleft and exceed the anthers. This is called "ookow" by the Indians.
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.