Toxicoscordion venenosum var. venenosum

Meadow deathcamas

Family: Melanthiaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Meadow deathcamas is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, central western California, western Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, Great Basin, and Desert Mountains in moist meadows to dry rocky hillsides at elevations below 2,600 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces white to cream-colored flowers in elongated racemes 5 to 25 centimeters long with distinctive white-membranous to green bracts. Growing with slender stems 15 to 70 centimeters tall, it emerges from a widely ovate bulb 12 to 25 millimeters in diameter with a brownish outer coat. Its leaves are long and narrow, reaching 10 to 40 centimeters in length and 4 to 10 millimeters wide, with scabrous-ciliate margins. The fruit is a cylindric capsule 8 to 14 millimeters long, containing numerous small seeds.

Habitat: Moist meadows to dry rocky hillsides

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 2600 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, CW, WTR, PR, GB, DMtns

California counties: Inyo, Kern, Siskiyou, Butte, Shasta, Lassen, Plumas, Santa Clara, Glenn, Calaveras, Modoc, Amador, Nevada, Tehama, Alameda, Santa Barbara, Merced, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, San Diego, Mariposa, Del Norte, Madera, Riverside, Mono, Sierra, Tuolumne, Placer, El Dorado, Napa, Lake, Fresno, San Benito, Tulare, Colusa, Alpine

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