Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Hot, windy, dry – drought and red flag fire danger continues.
SEGO LILY
Botanists named this lovely plant Calochortus nuttallii.
In the Shoshone language, seego means edible bulb.
Native Americans used the bulbs, seeds, and flowers of the plant.
The bulbs (which look like small garlic cloves) were consumed raw, roasted, or ground into porridge by the Hopi, Navajo, and Ute tribes.
And the Hopi used the flower in ceremonies.
From the Shoshone, the Mormon pioneers learned to eat sego lilies when food ran short on the trek to Salt Lake. In tribute, the Sego lily was named the Utah state flower in 1911.
The lily appears briefly in early summer – suddenly they pop up between my house and studio. Not in bunches or clumps, but in solitary profusion scattered across the dry landscape.
I admire their singularity and independence. Lying in wait across the seasons, when the time is just right, they appear. I admire them because the flowers are beautiful. I admire them because they are edible.
Yes. And they taste good.
An ethnobotanist (a specialist in the relationship between plants and cultures) told me the flowers were sweet, the bulbs could be fried in butter, peeled, salted, and consumed like nuts. So, I did that. Three times. Memorable.
Why am I telling you this?
You may never encounter a Sego lily.
And never be tempted to eat a wild plant.
Or a flower.
But if you were out walking with me in the cool of the morning dawn and saw the Sego lilies, I would tell you about them, as I have just now.
And I would say that magical things are always close by wherever you are – if you stop to notice.