Fritillaria affinis

Checker lily

Family: Liliaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 1B.1

Checker lily is a rare (CNPS 1B.1) California native perennial found in northwestern California, Cascade Range foothills, northern Sierra Nevada foothills, and central western California in oak and pine scrub, grassland habitats at elevations up to 1,800 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces distinctive brown-purple flowers mottled with yellow, nodding elegantly with perianth parts 1 to 4 centimeters long. Growing with stems 1 to 12 decimeters tall, it develops from a large bulb with distinctive scaled architecture. Its leaves appear in 1 to 4 whorls of 2 to 8 below the stem, becoming alternate above, ranging 4 to 16 centimeters long in lance-linear to ovate shapes. The fruit develops with widely winged edges, characteristic of this unique lily species.

Habitat: Common. Oak or pine scrub, grassland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1800 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRF, n SNF, CW (exc SCoRI)

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Butte, Siskiyou, Mendocino, Monterey, San Mateo, Napa, Humboldt, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Alameda, Marin, Lake, Trinity, Del Norte, Tehama, San Francisco, Solano, San Benito, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Placer, Yuba, Glenn, Sierra, Sutter, Ventura, Shasta, Colusa, Yolo, Stanislaus, Nevada, Mariposa, Calaveras, San Bernardino

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.