Death Camas

 Death camas

Death camas are interesting plants with distinctive flowers that make them fairly easy to recognize as death camas. As the name implies, they are extremely poisonous. The trouble though is to point them down to the genus. Death camas used to belong to the genus Zigadenus. Since then phylogenetic research involving DNA analyses split this genus into several others. What used to be Zigadenus elegans is now called Anticlea elegans. Other genera include Toxicoscordion, not to mention species within genera.

Death camas flowers

The trouble is that all these species look very much alike. They all have rather small white flowers with six petals, protruding stamens and yellow-green spots on the petals. The leaves can have angular or rounded edge and the spots can be round or more like a stripe. I was not able to identify the genus with more presicions but my guess it is either Anticlea or Toxicoscordion. They all belong to the family Melanthiaceae but used to be part of the Lily family (Liliaceae).