Thursday, June 9, 2011

A New One for Me!







I stopped by fellow biologist's house today to announce the arrival of the Mountain Lady Slipper which should be blooming by now or very soon. I recently posted photos of it budding. He invited me into his back yard to look at a lily he had never seen before. Neither had I. We both knew it was a Calochortus, a kind of Mariposa Lily or Tulip Lily, depending on where you live. I returned with my camera and upon close examination of the enlarged photos, I was able to ID it as Yellow Star Tulip, or Calochortus monophyllus. A very pretty and relatively small species, its most pronounced feature is "hair" all over the petals. It also has a reddish brown spot at the base of each petal. Now I'm wondering how it got there.

1 comment:

  1. About a month ago I walked along the Independence Trail at the South Yuba River State Park, and the predominant flower was the Yellow Star Tulip. This has been a VERY GOOD YEAR for them, I've seen a lot more than I recall from past years. Very pretty! I haven't gotten my pictures of it posted yet.

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