Fritillaria camschatcensis

Fritillaria camschatcensis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Liliales
Family:	Liliaceae
Genus:	Fritillaria
Species:	F. camschatcensis
Binomial name
Fritillaria camschatcensis (L.) Ker-Gawl.

Fritillaria camschatcensis is a species of fritillary native to northeastern Asia, including northern Japan, Kamchatka, and eastern Siberia, and western North America from Alaska to Oregon. It has many common names, typically Kamchatka fritillary or Kamchatka lily.

It is also called rice lily, northern rice-root, or (misleadingly) "Indian rice" or "wild rice", because of the rice-like bulblets that form around its roots. It is also sometimes known as skunk lily, dirty diaper and outhouse lily because of the flower's unpleasant smell.

Yet another vernacular name is "chocolate lily" because of its brown color, but that term is also applied to Fritillaria biflora (in California) or to the distantly related Arthropodium strictum whose flowers smell of chocolate.

The plant's roots are a starchy tuber, similar to a potato. They are often dug up by grizzly bears. The plants have been eaten by Indigenous people of the Northern Pacific Rim for centuries before the introduction of Western diets. In 2012 there was a small movement to revive the use of plant in British Columbia by West Coast First Nations.

References and external links

• USDA Plants Profile
• Photo of the Chocolate Lily
• European Garden Flora, Vol. 1

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  an illustration showing the flower

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  Flower

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  Flowers in Mount Haku, Japan