GOERT: Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team

Perennial herb from slender, fibrous roots and many rice-like bulblets (at flowering time); stems erect, solitary, simple, smooth to glandular short-hairy, 10-30 cm tall. Leaves: Basal leaves, egg-shaped to triangular, usually smooth sometimes glandular-hairy, 3-14 cm long, the blades less than 2-3 times as long as wide, entire to shallowly wavy-margined or remotely toothed, narrowing abruptly to winged stalks 1/4 as long to nearly as long as the blades; stem leaves lacking. Flowers: Inflorescence at terminal, involucrate umbel of 2-15 stalked flowers, the stalks smooth to glandular-short-hairy, floral parts in fours or fives (on the same plant), corollas deeply lobed, the lobes deep magenta to lighter in colour, grading to yellow at the bases and on the tubes, 15-25 mm long, bases of the tubes deep purple-red; calyces lobed, the lobes lanceolate, 6-8 mm long, usually sparsely glandular-short hairy, finely purple-flecked; filaments united to form tubes, 2-4 mm long, deep purple-red, usually cross-wrinkled, sometimes nearly smooth; anthers 4-6 mm long, deep red to purple; connective tissue more deeply coloured, usually cross-wrinkled; stigmas not noticeably enlarged, less than twice as wide as the styles; corollas and stamens deciduous as capsules mature. Fruits: Fruit capsules, cylindrical, 7-12 mm long, the tips coming off like lids (from Douglas et al., 1999). Photo by Dave Polster.