''Fritillaria eastwoodiae'', also known as Butte County fritillary or Eastwood's fritillary is a rare member of the Lily family (

Liliaceae The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a fair ...

), native to the foothills of the northern

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

, and Cascade Mountains in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and southern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

( Jackson County), USA.Biota of North America Project
/ref>

Description

''Fritillaria eastwoodiae'' grows to heights from 20 to 80 centimeters, and has linear to narrowly lanceolate leaves arranged on its glaucous stem. Its flowers are

nodding A nod of the head is a gesture in which the head is tilted in alternating up and down arcs along the sagittal plane. In many cultures, it is most commonly, but not universally, used to indicate agreement, acceptance, or acknowledgement. To indi ...

with slightly flared and slightly recurved (curving backwards)

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s. Its color varies from greenish-yellow mottled to a mixture of red, orange, green and yellow mottling.Eastwood, Alice. 1933. Leaflets of Western Botany 1(6): 55, as ''Fritillaria phaeanthera''
/ref>

Distribution and habitat

''Fritillaria eastwoodiae'' grows in dry open woodlands and

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant community and geographical feature found primarily in the U.S. state of California, in southern Oregon, and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean c ...

from 500 to 1500 meters, in Shasta, Yuba, Tehama,

Butte __NOTOC__ In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word mea ...

and El Dorado Counties. It has also been reported from Jackson County in Oregon. It occurs in similar habitat with '' F. affinis'', '' F. micrantha'', and '' F. recurva'', and blooms from March through May. It can sometimes be found on

serpentine soil Serpentine soil is an uncommon soil type produced by weathered ultramafic rock such as peridotite and its metamorphic derivatives such as serpentinite. More precisely, serpentine soil contains minerals of the serpentine subgroup, especially anti ...

References

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment - ''Fritillaria eastwoodiae''USDA Plants Profile; ''Fritillaria eastwoodiae''''Fritillaria eastwoodiae'' - Photo gallery
eastwoodiae Flora of California Flora of Oregon Flora of the Cascade Range Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Plants described in 1933 Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{liliales-stub