Common Name: CENTURY PLANT FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, shrub, tree, fibrous succulent or not, from bulbs or rhizomes. Stem: above ground or not, branched or not. Leaf: simple, deciduous or not, basal or in terminal rosettes, generally sessile, linear, lanceolate, oblanceolate or ovate, fibrous or not, thin and flexible or thick and rigid or succulent; margin entire, fine-serrate, dentate, or with filaments, tips rigid or flexible, with a spine or not. Flower: bisexual; perianth parts 6, in 2 petal-like whorls, free or +- fused; stamens 6, +- fused to perianth, filaments often wide, succulent; ovary superior or inferior, chambers 3, style 1 (thick, poorly defined), stigma head-like or 3-lobed. Fruit: capsule, indehiscent, loculicidal, or septicidal. Seed: few to many, +- flat or ovoid, generally black.
Genera In Family: 24 genera, 637 species: worldwide.
eFlora Treatment Author: Dale W. McNeal, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Dale W. McNeal, Thomas J. Rosatti, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: CAMAS, QUAMASH
Habit: Perennial herb; bulb 1 [or clustered (each bulb has 1 leaf-cluster, 1 scape, or both, so no need to dig up bulbs to make this determination)], coat black or brown. Leaf: basal, linear, keeled, glabrous. Inflorescence: scapose raceme; flowers 3--many; bracts 1--6 cm, narrow-lanceolate, scarious in age; pedicels 1--5 cm, spreading or incurved in fruit. Flower: +- radial (or bilateral); perianth parts 6, in 2 petal-like whorls, fused < 5% of length, 12--40 mm, lanceolate, blue to +- purple (white), 3--9 veined, twisted together above ovary in fruit [or not]; stamens 6, anthers generally 4--7 mm, attached at middle; ovary chambers 3. Fruit: loculicidal. Seed: 6--36, black. Chromosomes: n=15.
Etymology: (chamass, qám'es, or quamash, Native American word) Note: California species highly variable, may hybridize, in need of study; bulbs traded among, eaten by Native Americans, perhaps creating local forms.
Reference: Uyeda & Kephart 2006 Syst Bot 31:643--655