Eastern camas, wild hyacinth

Cyanotris scilloides Rafinesque, Amer. Monthly Mag. & Crit. Rev. 3: 356. 1818; Quamasia hyacinthina (Rafinesque) Britton; Schoenolirion texanum (Scheele) A. Gray

Bulbs sometimes clustered, ovoid, 1–3 cm diam. Leaves 3–8, 2–6 dm × 5–20 mm. Inflorescences 19–47 cm; sterile bracts 0–3(–5), bracts subtending flowers shorter than or equaling pedicel. Flowers actinomorphic; tepals usually withering separately after anthesis, not deciduous, light blue, occasionally whitish, each 3- or 5-veined, 7–15 × 2.6–4.2 mm; anthers bright yellow, 1.3–3.2 mm; fruiting pedicel mostly spreading to spreading-erect, 5–30 mm. Capsules deciduous, pale green to light brown, subglobose, 6–10 mm. Seeds 2–5 per locule. 2n = 30.

Flowering mid--late spring. Prairies; 100--1000 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Camassia scilloides flowers two to three weeks earlier than sympatric populations of C. angusta. The name Schoenolirion texanum was long misapplied to a taxon now correctly known as S. wrightii Sherman.