Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Liliopsida -- monocotyledons

Order: Liliales

Family: Liliaceae -- lily

Common Name: yellow bell, yellow fritillary

Species Code: FRPU2

Origin: Native to open places with some vernal moisture from shrub-steppe to open forest east of the Cascade Mountains of southern British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, south to northern California and east to Montana and Colorado.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from a small bulb with many offset bulblets; stems glabrous, erect, 10-30 cm tall.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: prairie, shrub thickets, forest

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: usually 2, subopposite, but sometimes more than 2 and alternate or nearly whorled, linear to linear-oblanceolate, 3-16 mm long and 2-12 mm wide, glabrous.

Mature height: 4-12 inches

Flowers: usually single, nodding, sometimes 2 or rarely 3, narrowly campanulate; tepals 6, all similar, yellow fading to reddish-orange, oblong-lanceolate to oblanceolate, 12-26 mm long and 4-10 wide, rounded.

Flower color: yellow

Bloom: April

Bloom starts on: early April

Bloom ends on: mid April

Fruit: capsule, erect, cylindric to obovoid, 6-angled, 18-30 mm long; seeds flat, brown, wing-margined.

Characteristics:
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by offsets of the bulb.
165,996 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS Pullman PMC 2005).
Perennating organ is a bulb.
2n=26, 39 (Hitchcock et al 1969).
2n=24, 26 (Baldwin et al 2004, Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993+).
Triploids are known (MacFarlane 2000).
Probably pollinated by bees.
Flowers are perfect.
Fruit is a capsule.
Bulbs and green capsules are edible raw or cooked.
The bulbs are eaten by bears, gophers, and ground squirrels, while the leaves and seed capsules are eaten by deer (Craighead et al 1963).

Comments: One of the very early wildflowers on the Palouse

Sun requirement: full

Soil moisture: vernally mesic

Precipitation: 8-16 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).

Fire: bulbs probably survive most fires

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: fall

Stratification: cold moist plus cool incubation

Seed yield: low

Seed harvest: medium difficulty

Seed first harvest: 4+ years

Seed cleaning: easy

Seed insect problem: none noted

Seed shatter: low

Seed size: large

Seed harvest date: July

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: native upland perennial forb

Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Pullman WA Plant Materials Center

Other Propagation Information
Fall sow. No germination may occur for 6 months. Plants should be held until fall of second year before replanting (Kruckeberg 1996).
90 days cold moist stratification in the dark or 120 days in light resulted in highest germination. Germinates at low temperatures (Nauman 2002).
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by offsets of the bulb.

Notes: Fritillaria pudica has nice yellow flowers early in the season. Takes 5-6 years to grow from seed to flowering plants. Sow seeds in pots outdoors and leave them out there. Will not survive in a greenhouse. Bulbs are available from some mail-order nurseries. Common names include yellow bell, yellow fritillary (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 09/09/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Craighead, John J., Frank C. Craighead, and Ray J. Davis. 1963. A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Wildflowers. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/

Hitchcock, C. Leo, Arthur Cronquist, Marion Ownbey, and J.W. Thompson. 1969. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press. Seattle, WA. 5 vol.

Kruckeberg, Arthur R. 1996. Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press. Seattle, WA.

Macfarlane, Roger. 2000. Fritillaria pudica, Liliaceae. Curtis's Botanical Magazine 17:155-158.

Nauman, C. 2002. Germination of 12 Palouse Prairie forbs after stratification under light and dark treatments. M.S. Thesis, University of Idaho, Moscow ID.

Sax, Karl. 1916. Fertilization in Fritillaria pudica. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 43:505-522.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 9 September 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

USDA NRCS, Pullman Plant Materials Center. 2005. Seed Weights of Some Palouse Native Species. Pullman Plant Materials Center, Pullman, Washington. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/~pmc_nrcs/Docs/Seed_Weights_Palouse_Native_Species.pdf

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species account from the University of Washington Herbarium
Species description from Flora of North America