A year of flowers #20: Camas

Camassia quamash

Camas is blooming all through the prairie now, but this patch is the thickest with blooms.  It had but 4-5 blooms last year, and now it has about 30.  I think is was in 2012 when my friends Michael and Diane told me that their neighbors had a huge patch of camas, and gave us permission to collect some seed.  I used it throughout the wettest areas of my property, but chose this particular spot that had no other camas to plant a lot of only that seed, so I would know how long it took from a seed to a bloom.  So, now we know--it's about eight years.