In spring, wild hyacinth bears an elongated cluster of pale blue flowers with prominent anthers that sway on stalks up to 2 feet tall.
The flowers have 6 tepals (3 petals and 3 petal-like sepals) that are white to bluish white or lavender; the flowers are fragrant, usually with up to 50 flowers on the long flower stalk.
Blooms April–May.
There may be up to 2 narrow, bractlike leaves on the stem, between the lowest flowers and the basal leaves.
The basal leaves are narrow, less than ½ inch wide, tapering to a point, flattened, with a raised midrib on the undersurface, or sometimes folded lengthwise in the lower half.
The rootstocks are bulbs. This plant lacks the odor of onion or garlic.
Similar species: A very similar wild hyacinth, Camassia angusta, has 3–24 narrow, bractlike leaves on the flower stalk between the lowest flowers and the basal leaves, and it has up to 100 flowers per flowering stalk (though not all flowers may open at once, with some represented only as stalks with the spent flowers gone).
- It blooms later, in early May to late June, and it has more deeply colored flowers than our other wild hyacinth.
- It is less common and occurs sporadically in a diagonal, southwest-to-northeast band across the state, from Jasper, Barton, and Vernon counties to Ralls and Shelby counties.
Height: to 2 feet.
Scattered nearly statewide, most common in the Ozarks, but absent from our southeastern lowland counties and apparently absent from the northwestern section.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs in a wide variety of habitats: moist bottomland forests to upland woodlands, savannas, stream banks, bluff ledges, moist bottomland to upland prairies, glades (mostly calcareous); also along roadsides and in old fields.
Our other wild hyacinth, Camassia angusta, is found primarily in moist upland prairies and savannas, and sometimes in rocky areas.
Where our two species of wild hyacinths occur together, the plants of C. angusta bloom significantly later and have more purplish, more deeply colored flowers than those of C. scilloides.
Status
Native Missouri wildflower.
Human Connections
The botanical name Camassia and the English “camas” are variants of the Nez Perce word Qém'es, or “quamash.” The edible bulbs of this plant and its relatives were eaten by several groups of Native Americans. If you’re thinking about trying some, make sure you can tell the difference between this plant and its poisonous relatives!
The closely related plant known as quamash, or small camas (Camassia quamash), was a particularly important food for several Native American tribes and for members of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The species name, scilloides, refers to this plant’s resemblance to squill plants: Scilloideae is a subfamily whose genera include the common garden hyacinth (Hyacinthus sp.), Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), and several others.
Ecosystem Connections
Numerous insects, including bees, wasps, flies, and butterflies, are attracted to the nectar in these fragrant flowers.
It is likely that mammals, including deer and other herbivores, eat the foliage.
Botanists have long debated the relationships among the lilies and have divided them into several separate families. New evidence based on molecular studies supports this idea, thus wild hyacinths are now in the asparagus family, the Asparagaceae. A more conservative approach would keep them in the lily family, the Liliaceae. Keep in mind that references will differ.
