Habit: Cormlets often present.
Leaf: generally 1--6, linear, generally crescent-shaped in ×-section, glabrous, entire, often withered at flower.
Inflorescence: open; scape 2--70 cm, generally slender, generally straight, cylindric; bracts scarious; pedicels generally > flowers, generally < 13 cm.
Flower: perianth tube bell- to funnel-shaped, green-white, lobes erect to spreading, violet to lavender, occasionally pink, midribs purple or green; staminodes (0)3, generally +- erect, opposite outer lobes, white to violet or lavender, lateral margins flat, incurved, or inrolled; stamens 3, equal, fused to perianth, opposite inner lobes, filaments occasionally winged or appendaged, free or fused basally to staminodes, generally not forming crown-like tube, anthers attached at base, appressed to style, abaxially papillate; style 1, stigma lobes 3, spreading and recurved.
Fruit: sessile, ovoid.
Seed: oblong, black, lined, angles ridged.
Species In Genus: +- 19 species: mostly endemic to California.
Etymology: (James Brodie, Scottish botanist, 1744--1824)
Jepson eFlora Author: J. Chris Pires & Robert E. Preston
Reference: Preston 2013 Systematic Botany 38:1012--1028
Unabridged Reference: Chester et al. 2007 Madroño 54:187--198; Preston 2006 Madroño 53:46--54; Preston 2006 Novon 16:254--259Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Brodiaea
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