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Toxicoscordion fontanum
Also called Marsh Zigadenus
Smallflower deathcamas is a rare bulb-forming perennial herb known only from serpentine marshes in California's Coast Ranges, plus one isolated Sierra Nevada foothill population. It is a wild marsh plant rather than a common garden subject, and it is best grown only where its wet, low-nutrient soil can be reproduced.
Toxicoscordion fontanum, common name small-flower death camas, is a rare plant species known only from serpentine marshes in California. It is found primarily in the Coast Ranges from Mendocino County to San Luis Obispo County, with an additional report of an isolated population in the Sierra Nevada foothills in Kern County east of Bakersfield.
Toxicoscordion fontanum is a bulb-forming perennial herb. Bulbs are egg-shaped, up to 40 mm (1.6 inches) long, not clumped together. Inflorescences are paniculate, sometimes with as many as 100 flowers. Tepals are cream-colored, up to 12 mm (0.5 inches) long; filaments shorter than the tepals.
As with many other species formerly included in Zigadenus, this species is highly toxic and potentially lethal to humans and to livestock. Some people have eaten it confusing it with wild onion, Allium spp. Zigadenus, despite Toxicoscordion not having the characteristic onion scent associated with Allium spp.
It is not unusual to find species that specialize in growing on serpentine soil. There are scattered pocket of this soil in various parts of California, Oregon, and elsewhere. Metamorphic rocks such as serpentinite are formed well below the earth's surface then carried upward by geologic activity. Soils made from such rocks tend to be low in nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus but high in nickel and chromium. Such conditions are toxic to most plants, but some species such as T. fontanum have evolved with adaptations allowing them to tolerate serpentine soils.
Desert Deathcamas · Giant Deathcamas · Fremont's Death Camas · Smallflower Deathcamas · Nuttall's Death Camas · Sand Corn · Meadow death camas · Deathcamas
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Toxicoscordion fontanum 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.
