notes and musings from a perennial gardener
Here’s a native bulb with an fascinating history you might not know about. Camassia, also called camas, Great Camas, camash, quamash, Indian hyacinth or wild hyacinth, is comprised of five species native to the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. There is also an eastern species C. scilloides, or Atlantic camassia. They are all members of the asparagus family.
No, I don’t mean bluegrass music or feeling down in the dumps. I’m talking about spring bulbs featuring racemes of blue florets. Many are members of the scilla family which encompasses 80 to 90 species all by itself. They bloom at roughly the same time and look similar, so it can be challenging to keep them straight.
To make matters worse, many species are interchangeably referred to as squill or hyacinth because their Latin nomenclature is twisted and still unresolved. Subfamilies like bluebells can be further divided into English, Spanish or Virginia. Then there’s chionodoxa, Siberian squill, muscari, true hyacinth, and camassia — all blue, all spring blooming.
Do you know which is which? Does it matter?