top navigation:

Native Plant Propagation Guidelines:
forbs

Brodiaea coronaria (harvest brodiaea)

Category: 
forbs

harvest brodiaea (photo by Moralea Milne)

Perennial herb up to 30 cm tall from a deeply buried round, scaly corm about 2 cm across. One to three grass-like basal leaves, 2-3 mm wide, drying out before the flowers appear. Flowers violet-purple, vase-shaped, 2-4 cm long, unequally stalked; in loose umbels of two to ten (usually three to five) flowers. Fruits non-stalked, egg-shaped capsules (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Moralea Milne.

Scientific Name: 

Brodiaea coronaria (Salisb.) Engl. ssp. coronaria

Family: 
Liliaceae
English Name: 
harvest brodiaea
Other Names: 
harvest lily

Geographical Range and Habitat Requirements

Ecological Setting: 

Open, often gravelly sites (grassy meadows and slopes); at low elevations (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994).

Soil Texture: 

Coarse-textured, free-draining (Pettinger and Costanzo, 2002).

Nutrients: 
n/a
Soil Reaction and Salinity: 
n/a
Moisture Regime: 

Dry.

Shade Tolerance: 

Full sun to light shade.

Successional Status: 

Climax species in dry open grassland sites.

BEC Zone and GOE Community Status: 

Grassy meadows in association with Hooker's onion, satinflower and common camas.

Uses

Site Rehabilitation: 

Probably not a practical species choice for site rehabilitation.

Wildlife: 
n/a
Landscaping: 

Attractive when used in rockeries and front of borders. Plant 15 cm apart for best results. Mix with nodding onion, common camas, satin flower and native bunchgrasses (S. Bastin, personal communication; Pettinger and Costanzo, 2002).

First Nations: 

Corms harvested by some coastal peoples and steamed before eating (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994).

Other Uses: 
n/a

Seed Propagation

Flowering Time: 

June - July

Fruit Ripening Time: 

July - August

Seed Collection Time: 

July - August

Crop Intervals: 

Annual

Number of Seeds per Kilogram: 
n/a
Seed Viability: 
n/a
Fruit and Seed Collection and Extraction: 

Collect ripe, dark-coloured capsules as they begin to split, and shake the seeds into a bag (Pettinger and Costanzo, 2002).

Seed Storage: 

Not recommended.

Fruit/Seed Dormancy and Treatment: 

Sow seeds in the fall in a gritty mixture of sand and loam. Seedlings take 3 to 4 years from germination to flowering (Pettinger and Costanzo, 2002).

Vegetative Propagation

Method Success Rate Time of Collection
Softwood cuttings    
Semi-hardwood cuttings    
Hardwood cuttings    
Root cuttings    
Suckers    
Plant division: Lift dormant plants and separate cormels. Air dry and store at 5ºC in slightly-damp peat moss until spring. Shallow-plant cormels in flats. New plants will form a corm and will bloom after one more year of growth (Costanzo and Dick, 2002). Good Autumn

 

Outplanting Characteristics and Requirements

Plant at the front of a sunny bed or rockery. Grow with Hooker's onion and broad-leafed stonecrop for good colour contrast (Pettinger and Costanzo, 2002). Plant with native bunchgrasses to provide support for the thin wiry flower stalks (Kruckeberg, 1996).

Seed and Cutting Propagation Techniques

n/a

Additional Information and Photos

For more information and pictures, visit the E-Flora BC website at www.eflora.bc.ca.

?>