Grass Nut, Wally Basket
Triteleia laxa
NATIVE
Description (Jepson, PlantID.net)
- Monocotyledon
- Monocots are a major lineage of flowering plants; see family for general characteristics
- Brodiaea Family (Themidaceae)
- Perennial herb
- Grows from a corm (a short, solid underground stem)
- Leaves
- Basal, linear, grasslike (to 16 in.)
- Generally with a prominent longitudinal fold (keeled)
- May wither before the plant blooms
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is an open umbel (a spoke-like flower cluster with stalks radiating from a single point) at the end of a long, leafless stalk (scape)
- 10-20 (or more) blue, blue-purple, or white, trumpet-shaped flowers
- Individual flowers have 3 petals and 3 sepals (outer flower parts), in 2 whorls, similar in appearance and collectively called tepals, fused into a tube with spreading tips
- 6 stamens (male flower parts), with white to pale purple anthers, are attached at 2 different levels
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is an open umbel (a spoke-like flower cluster with stalks radiating from a single point) at the end of a long, leafless stalk (scape)
- Fruit is a capsule (a dry multi-chambered pod that splits open) with 3 chambers
- Height to 28 in.
Distribution
- Native to California
- Grows in grasslands, open forest, and foothill woodlands
- See Calflora for statewide observations of this plant
- Outside California, grows in southwestern Oregon
- Grows at elevations to 4,900 ft.
Uses (San Mateo County Parks prohibits removal of any natural material)
- Wildlife
- Attracts a large number of native bees for nectar and pollen (Lady Bird 2023)
- Corms are eaten by mammals, including gophers
- Native people
- Ate the corms boiled, steamed, roasted, or baked in earthen ovens (Anderson 2005)
- See Brodiaea family for more details about how Native people actively managed edible geophytes
Name Derivation
- Triteleia (tri-tel-EE-a) – from the Greek tri, meaning “three,” and teleios, “perfect,” referring to floral parts in 3’s
- laxa (LAK-sa) – from the Latin for “loose,” referring to the loose, open arrangement of the flowers
- Ithuriel’s spear – named after a character in John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem Paradise Lost
- Ithuriel is an angel sent to root out Satan, who is hiding in the Garden of Eden in the form of a toad. Ithuriel pokes him with his spear “for no falsehood can endure / Touch of celestial temper, but returns / Of force to its own likeness”
- At its touch, the spear, “with sudden blaze diffus’d, inflames the air”
- Picture the scape as the spear crowned with a purple spray of flowers, like a fiery explosion!
Notes
- Geophytes, e.g. plants growing from bulbs, corms, and rhizomes, are adapted to survive fire, our Mediterranean climate’s long, dry summers, and extended droughts
- Above-ground growth dies back after flowering, while underground the plant survives with stored water and nutrients
- One of 9 Brodiaea family members found at Edgewood
- An extraordinary representation for a small preserve (467 acres)!
- Only 10 Brodiaea species occur in the entire Santa Cruz Mountains bioregion (approx. 900,000 acres)
- Highly variable in color, flower size, and number of flowers in the umbel
- Previously in the Lily family (Liliaceae)
ID Tips
- At Edgewood, may be confused with harvest brodiaea (B. elegans ssp. elegans), or dwarf brodiaea (B. terrestris ssp. terrestris)
- Check out this short video (Jepson 2020) or this longer video (Clayton 2022) for more ID tips
| Dwarf Brodiaea | Harvest Brodiaea | Ithuriel’s Spear | |
| Height | ≤ 2.7 in. | ≤ 20 in. | ≤ 28 in. |
| Blooms | March-June | May-June | April-June |
| Tepals | fleshy, waxy | fleshy, waxy | paper thin |
| Stamens | 3 … anthers white | 3 … anthers white | 6 … anthers white to purple |
| Staminodes1 | curl strongly towards stamens … tip usually notched | lean away from stamens … tip unnotched | none |
| Habitat | mostly serpentine grasslands | mostly non-serpentine grasslands | mostly woodlands |
At Edgewood
- Found in serpentine and non-serpentine grasslands and woodlands
- See iNaturalist for observations of this plant
- Flowers April – June
Specific References
Clayton, R. 2022, Apr. 1. Triplet lilies, ookows, and blue dicks: Tips for identifying Brodiaeoideae [Video]. Fire Followers Spring Training [Webinar]. California Native Plant Society. YouTube.
Jepson Herbarium. 2020, Oct 1. Themidaceae (Brodiaea, Dichelostemma, Dipterostemon, and Triteleia) [Video]. The Jepson Videos: Visual Guide to the Plants of California. The Regents of the University of California. YouTube.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. 2023. Triteleia laxa. Native Plants of North America. University of Texas at Austin.
Sullivan, R. 2013, Apr. 11. Ithuriel’s spear and other spears of springtime. Bay Nature.
PlantID.net. Ithuriel’s spear or harvest brodiaea?
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charter, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meaning and Derivations.
Charter, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.
Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Flora of North America. efloras.org.
Harris, J.G. and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.
Native American Ethnobotany DB.
Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.