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General:
Perennial herb from an egg-shaped, scaly bulb, the bulbs often clustered, the outer scales brownish, fibrous, in a coarse-meshed network, the inner scales whitish; flowering stems erect, 10-50 cm tall, slender, cylindric to somewhat angled, smooth.
Leaves:
Basal leaves usually 3 or more, persisting, linear, channeled, shorter than the flowering stem, 2-5 mm wide, smooth, the margins entire; stem leaves lacking.
Flowers:
Inflorescence a terminal umbel of several to many, stalked flowers, above 2 or 3 membranous, egg-shaped to lanceolate bracts, the stalks longer than the flowers; flowers pink, rarely white, bell-shaped, of 6 distinct tepals, mostly replaced by bulbils; tepals usually 6-8 mm long, egg-shaped to lanceolate, somewhat long-tapering to pointed or blunt tips, sometimes obscurely toothed on the margins, erect, in fruit becoming tough-keeled and enclosing the capsule; stamens 6, usually shorter than the tepals; pistil 1, 3-chambered.
Fruits:
Capsules, more or less egg-shaped, 3-lobed, with 6 low, knob-like crests; seeds 6 or fewer, shiny-black.
Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
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