A year of flowers #25: Douglas' brodiaea

   

 Triteleia grandiflora

My son just walked behind me as I pulled up this image, and asked, "Did you edit the color?"  No, I didn't.  These sit up about 30" and are pretty spectacular, but this is the only one blooming out of the hundreds of these plants I have at the south end of the property.  Several have been munched by the deer, and I decided that I had better take the photo of this one, even though all the buds had not yet popped.  It has been weirdly dry here, and I am currently watering some parts of the property that I am working on.  For the second time.  Some of the plants are showing stress, and I think these hyacinth-esque native flowers are struggling, and many are clearly deciding to stay down this year.  But this one has weirdly-intense color, maybe for the same reason.

There has always been a drift of them there, mainly pine-needle-sized leaves year after year, back along the fence.  And then one year, thick leaves will appear and it will send up a flower.  I think I tried to dig for the bulbs once, and gave up after about three feet down.  And I have collected the seeds from my flowers and unmunched seed heads from down the road.  I've tried scarifying the seed with hot water.  I have never gotten one of these to sprout.  But every year they creep in a little.