Montana Field Guide

Bulbs narrowly ovoid, often clustered; outer coat fibrous, net-like. Scapes terete, 10–50 cm. Leaves 2 or 3, channeled, 1–3 mm wide, persistent. Umbel hemispheric or narrower, with a mixture of flowers and ovoid bulbils 3–6 mm long; pedicels 5–12 mm long; bracts 2 or 3, ovate, acute to apiculate. Flowers white to pink; tepals 5–7 mm long; ovary with small crests adjacent to the style; stamens included. Seed surface minutely roughened (adapted from Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Variety tenerum is easily distinguished from the typical variety by the presence of bulbils in the inflorescence.

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus sylvicola, Bombus occidentalis, and Bombus bohemicus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).