Click on my Jolly Mariposa Lily Illustration Above to Get Up Close and Personal
With This Native Darling
Mariposa, as I bet you know, is the Spanish word for "butterfly". That was what this beauty's petals, apparently, made some early botanist thing about when they first saw this late spring/early summer flower.
On my morning study break, I took a time travel jaunt back to the middle of the 18'th century. There I found that the native Lamishan (an Ohlone people) think it's equally fanciable as a taste treat. The group I met up with were digging up the bulbs of this (as we'll as some of the other local Calochortus). One of the women told me that her cousins up valley usually boil or roast them. Her folks, however, like them fried. The results looked, and tasted, much like what I do with a friendly spud.
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