Camassia

Jim McKenney jamesamckenney@verizon.net
Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:29:20 PDT
Jane McGary wrote: "Rarely grown in gardens is C. cusickii from the inland Northwest, 
which is tall and pale blue. I found it an easy garden plant, though."
 
I agree with Jane's comment that Camassia cusickii is rarely grown in gardens. 
 
But I wonder why that is? As long ago as 1928 Frances Edge McIlvaine's Spring in the Little Garden gives a full page photograph of a well grown plant. Her text seems to suggest that she regarded it as a European-raised cultivar.
It is widely available in the bulb trade, and in the recent past local garden centers often had bins of the comparatively huge bulbs. Mail order catalogs still offer bulbs (about a dollar each if you buy a hundred).
 
A nice clump in my garden persisted for years but suddenly disappeared. 
 
Jane also mentioned the double white C. leichtlinii: this one reminds me of the double tuberose.  
 Jim McKenney
jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com
Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone
7
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