Diogenes' Lantern (Calochortus amabilis) at Camp Royeneh near Cazadero, California.

Like most other fairy lanterns (Calochortus), this plant spends most of the year as a dormant bulb. Late winter rains cause it to grow a few grasslike leaves during early spring, which wither and are replaced by lovely yellow flowers in late spring. They generally bloom in late April and early May. By june they usually develop seed pods which drop seeds late in the month, and the plant goes back to dormancy the rest of the year.

Fairy lanterns grow all over the state, with at least 48 species represented. They have historically been used as food, managed by indigenous agriculture.

This species is endemic to the North Coast Ranges.

#CaliforniaNativePlants #Nativeplants #PlantsoftheBayArea #PlantsofSonomaCounty #WildlifePhotography #PlantPhotography #Mosstodon #bloomscrolling #wildflowers #SonomaCounty #SonomaCountyBotany #Cazadero #CampRoyaneh #Calochortusamabilis
#Calochortus #DiogenesLantern
#FairyLantern #NorCalBotany

New endangered #FairyLantern plant species discovered in Malaysia https://phys.org/news/2025-03-endangered-fairy-lantern-species-malaysia.html

#Thismia aliasii (Thismiaceae), a #NewSpecies from Terengganu, Peninsular #Malaysia https://phytokeys.pensoft.net/article/136085/

"They are mycoheterotrophic, meaning they do not photosynthesize and instead rely entirely on #fungi for their nutrition. The genus is known for containing species with unusual #flowers that facilitate specialized #pollination mechanisms involving small #insects such as fungus gnats."

#NewSpecies of elusive #FairyLantern found in Malaysia https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/17/plantwatch-new-species-fairy-lantern-thismia-malaysia

"Fairy lantern #plants are seriously weird. They look like something from another planet with their lantern-like flowers, spend most of their lives underground, have no leaves or chlorophyll and suck all their nourishment out of #fungi living in the ground."

"Thismia kobensis was first discovered in Kobe City..Japan in 1992, but it was believed to be extinct, given that its type locality was destroyed during the construction of an industrial complex. Here, we have reported the rediscovery of T. kobensis in Sanda City..which is located approximately 30 km from the type locality. The new locality of T. kobensis is the northernmost distributional limit of Asian Thismiaceae species"
https://www.biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.585.2.2#:~:text=Thismia%20kobensis%20was,Asian%20Thismiaceae%20species

#extinct #fairyLantern #rarePlants