- Androstephium caeruleum
Taxobox
name = Blue Funnel Lily
image_width = 250px
status =
status_source = iucn3.1
regnum =Plant ae
divisio = Magnoliophyta
classis = Liliopsida
ordo =Liliales | familia =Liliaceae
genus = "Androstephium "
species = "A. caeruleum"
binomial = "Androstephium caeruleum"
binomial_authority ="Androstephium caeruleum", is also known as the Blue Funnel Lily. It is a perennial herb found the
United States , ranging throughTexas ,Oklahoma andKansas . It disperses itsseed bywind .Cultivation and uses
The Blue Funnel Lily is among the first of the prairie flowers to bloom - emerging in February and flowering in March in North Central Texas.There is great variability in the shape and color (sky blue to purple to white) of flowers of the species; they have a faint sweet scent described as"grape-like". The plant is uncommon in its habitat,
black soil prairie , and nearly impossible to find among the prairie short grasses in which it grows. Fruit set is infrequent - whether due to loss of native pollinators or self-sterility is unknown - and ripens by late April, when it splits open, presenting the thin, flat black seeds to the wind. The seedling manifests itself as a single thin green leaf - very much like a single strand of thick green hair - and is easily lost in the prairie grasses among which it grows. First year growth results in a spherical bulb 4 mm to 5 mm in diameter. Over the course of several years the plant progressively pulls its corm deeper and deeper into the soil until it has reached a depth of 2.5 cm to 6 cm. Thecorm was once eaten inWest Texas .Gallery
References
* Kelly Kindscher (1987), Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie, pgs 43-45.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.