Quality Botanical Art & Affordable Prices
Vorobik Botanical Art
P.O. Box 866, Lopez Island, WA 98261. 510-520-2423. vorobik@gmail.com
All images on this site copyright Linda Ann Vorobik unless otherwise stated; Use granted only with written permission.
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click on image for whole view
Great Camas, Detail View
Camassia leichtlinii--click on image for whole view
Family: Liliaceae
Original: PRIVATE COLLECTION
Prints--Offset, Edition 1000, 11 by 14 inches
Cards--5 by 7 inches, on watercolor paper with a deckled edge
Great Camas (Camassia leichtlinii)
Liliaceae Family
Camas is found in coastal to montane wet meadows and swales, and occurs east from northern California into Wyoming and Utah. The plants often grow to be over two feet tall, with numerous pale blue to deep royal blue flowers about one and a half inches in diameter. Look closely at the flowers to see gorgeous striping of different hues of blues. Bulbs of many species of camas were a staple food of Native Americans, who wisely avoided the bulbs of the appropriately named death camas (Zygadenus venenosus), which frequently grows intermixed with camas. Camas is in cultivation in both white- and blue-flowered forms, but native camas stands are becoming less and less common, as lands they once dominated are taken over for grazing or crops. Wild camas is still common along Interstate-5 in Oregon, where the deep blue-flowered form can be seen in the Willamette Valley, the white-flowered forms grow just north of Roseburg, and the intermediate, pale blue-flowered form occurs in the regions between.
