About Brodiaea coronaria subsp. rosea (Greene) Niehaus
Brodiaea coronaria is a perennial herb that grows from a corm. It produces an erect inflorescence, along with a small number of basal leaves. The entire inflorescence reaches up to around 25 centimeters, or 10 inches, in height, and bears lily-like flowers on a set of stalks called pedicels. Each flower forms a tube several centimeters long, which opens into a bell-shaped corolla made of six bright purple lobes. Each lobe can grow up to 3 centimeters, or 1 inch, long. At the center of the flower are three fertile stamens, plus whitish, non-fertile stamens called staminodes. Native Americans and early European settlers on the North American continent harvested this plant's small corms (bulbs) to use as food. The bulbs are edible when raw, and have a taste described as nutty or similar to celery.
