Blue Dicks
Dipterostemon capitatus
Dipterostemon capitatus, called Blue Dicks, Wild Hyacinth, Purplehead and Brodiaea (alternate spellings, Brodiea, Brodeia ) occur in Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, and northern Mexico.
There are three recognized subspecies: D. capitatus subsp. lacuna-vernalis, Dipterostemon capitatus subsp. capitatus and Dipterostemon capitatum subsp. pauciflorus.
Dipterostemon capitatus is an herbaceous perennial growing from an underground corm to a height of as much as 60 centimeter. It has 2-3 leaves which are 10-40 centimeter long.
The flower cluster is head- or umbel-like, and dense. It usually contains 2 to 15 flowers, which have a blue, blue-purple, pink-purple, or white perianth. The flower tube is 3-12 millimeter and is narrowly cylindrical to campanulate. Flowers have six fertile stamens, deeply notched, lance-shaped, white, angled inward, slightly reflexed at tip, with outer filaments wider at the base.
It has a twisted and fleshy peduncle, a set of membranous, petal-like stamen appendages around the anthers, and angular black seeds. It reproduces from seed and vegetative means in the form of cormlets.
The cormlets are attached to the parent corm by stolons and are sessile, produced in the axils of the old leaf bases on the mature corm. Plants thrive in open disturbed environments, and are a common post-fire succession species in chaparral.
Calscape
https://calscape.org/loc-California/Blue%20Dicks%20(Dichelostemma%20capitatum)
