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Chamaelirium luteum
Also called Devil's Bit, Fairy Wand, Blazing Star, Blazingstar, False Unicorn, False Unicorn Root, Helonias
Fairywand is a perennial woodland and meadow herb native to eastern North America, grown mainly for its spike-like white flower stalks and traditionally harvested for its root. It is rare and often collected wild, so buy nursery-propagated plants where possible.
Chamaelirium luteum is a species of flowering plants, commonly known as blazing-star, devil's bit, false unicorn, fairy wand, and helonias. It is a perennial herb native to eastern Northern America. It can be found in a variety of habitats, including wet meadows and deciduous woodlands.
Chamaelirium luteum has a basal rosette of around six 8–15 cm leaves, from which a single spike-like raceme inflorescence (1–1.5 cm diameter, 8–30 cm length) emerges. The plants are generally dioecious, with male-biased gender ratios in a given population. This is due to higher mortality of female plants, and the tendency of female plants to flower less frequently. Female stalks tend to be taller, giving a total maximum plant height of about 1.2 m, but also tend to have about ten times fewer flowers.
Because Chamaelirium luteum is normally collected wild, it is at risk of extinction. Cultivation techniques are still under development to satisfy the demand from the market.
Chamaelirium luteum can be found in temperate North America, United States and Canada. It occurs in the east of the Mississippi and it is historically known from southern Ontario.
Chamaelirium luteum is used as ornamental or medical herb. Historically it has been used widely by Indigenous peoples.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Chamaelirium luteum 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.
