The open plant encyclopedia
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.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Dichelostemma capitatum
Also called Bluedicks, Indian Hyacinth, Blue Dips, Covenna, Crow Poison, Desert Hyacinth, Fool's Onion
Dipterostemon capitatus (also called Dichelostemma capitatum, blue dicks or Indian hyacinth) is the only species in its genus, a native bulbous perennial of western North America with dense clusters of blue or purple flowers in spring. It grows from a corm in open, disturbed, sunny ground and is sometimes grown in gardens.
Dipterostemon is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae. Its only species is Dipterostemon capitatus, synonym Dichelostemma capitatum, known by the common names blue dicks, wild hyacinth, purplehead and brodiaea (alternately spelled brodiea and brodeia), native to the Western United States (particularly Arizona, California, Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico) and northwest Mexico.
Seeds sown in the fall usually readily germinate and do not need special treatment. If planting seeds, they will take several years to reach flowering size. Propagation by corms is much easier.
Corms have been gathered by Native Americans in California, parts of the Great Basin, and the Southwest. These corms were an important starch source in their diet. California tribes dug and continue to dig the corms before flowering, during flowering, or after seeding depending on the tribe and individual family. Traditional gathering sites were visited annually, and there were gathering tracts with different kinds of corms and bulbs owned and maintained by particular families.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Dipterostemon 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.
