Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Butterfly mariposa lily

Calochortus venustus

Butterfly mariposa lily
Photo: Eric in SF, CC BY-SA 3.0

Butterfly mariposa lily is a California native bulb-forming perennial with showy, patterned bell-shaped flowers in spring. It grows best in full sun with sharp drainage and a dry summer rest.

Family
Liliaceae (Lily family)
Grows as
Perennial
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water during the growing season in spring, then keep nearly dry in summer while the bulb rests.
Soil
Light, sandy, very well-drained soil or gritty mix.
Temperature
10–30 °C; tolerates light frost once dormant
How easy
Moderate
Safety
Not toxic to cats or dogs (ASPCA).
Native range
California
Climate
temperate

About

Calochortus venustus is a California species of flowering plants in the lily family known by the common name butterfly mariposa lily. It is a perennial herb that grows in grasslands and open wooded areas.

Where it grows

The species is endemic to California ranging from Shasta County to San Diego County, particularly common in the San Gabriel Mountains, the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, and the Coast Ranges between Oakland and Los Angeles. It thrives in the light, sandy soils of a number of habitats, both grasslands and open wooded areas, at 300–2,700 metres (980–8,860 ft) in altitude.

Other Calochortus plants

White fairy-lantern · Diogenes' lantern · Doubting mariposa lily · Purple fairy-lantern · Pointedtip mariposa lily · Clay mariposa lily · Golden mariposa lily · Calochortus balsensis · Calochortus barbatus · Bruneau mariposa lily · Santa Catalina mariposa lily · Calochortus cernuus

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Calochortus venustus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…