Brodiaea

 Brodiaea californica

There are two kinds of Brodiaea that grow near the place where I live. It used to be part of lily family, in fact the common name for it is cluster lily. Now it is considered to be part of the Asparagus family (Asparagaceae). The plant grows from corm (kind of like tuber , basically a storage organ that allows plant to survive cold winter or hot summers). The six petals are joined at the base to form a tube. There are a few leaves but they don't join the stem but grow from the corm. The stem is bare.

Blue dicks in the meadow

So one genus is more commonly known as blue dicks: these are the ones that carry cluster of blue flowers on one rather tall stem. The Latin name is either Dichelostemma capitatum or Brodiaea. (There a few more synonyms. I prefer the term Brodiaea as the flower is exactly identical to the one that is known as Brodiaea californica. Those are very low growing plants similar to blue dicks but they carry only one flower per stem and the flower is a little bigger.

And here is Brodiaea californica. The two kinds of flowers are commonly seen together if you catch them at the right blooming period which is rather short.

Brodiaea californica

On the side note there is yet another plant that is most likely belong to the Asparagus family because it looks a lot like a wild asparagus but I am not really sure as it is almost impossible to find good pictures of wild asparagus. (But there are more than plenty of the cultivated kind.) So for the curious here is the picture. If you can identify it, please leave a comment below.

Unknown plant (Wild asparagus?)

Close-up of the stem looks like wild asparagus