Pink Funnel Lily growing in sandy soils |
General: Pink Funnel Lily (Androstephium breviflorum), also called Purple Funnel Lily and Blue Funnel Lily (a species found in Texas and Oklahoma) presumably because the flowers are white to pale violet. The plant is a perennial forb that grows from a bulb. Typical for lilies, the flower stalk branches six ways, and the flowers have six petals.
Leaves are long (to 30-cm long) and narrow (1- to 2-mm wide), round in cross-section, and with a groove on one side. The inflorescence is an open umbel. Globular fruits (10-15 mm) form three lobes.
Pink Funnel Lily is a rare component of desert communities with sandy soils. Around Las Vegas, look for this species in sandy Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub habitats around Las Vegas.
Family: Lily (Liliaceae)
Photos here were taken on Dry Lake Dunes (Desert NWR), Moapa River Indian Reservation, and Mormon Mesa. |