Butterfly Tulip
Calochortus Luteus, Var. Oculatus, Wats. Lily Family
Hab.—Sierras and Coast Ranges, from Fresno County to Oregon.
Of all our lovely Mariposa tulips, this charming form is perhaps the most like the insect for which it is named. Its creamy or purplish flowers have an exquisitely tinted dark-maroon eye, surrounded by yellow, and it is often streaked in marvelous imitation of the insect’s wing. It was doubtless this form Miss Coolbrith had in mind when she wrote the beautiful lines below:
“Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing,
Poised upon slender tip and quivering
To flight! a flower of the fields of air;
A jeweled moth, a butterfly with rare
And tender tints upon his downy wing
A moment resting in our happy sight;
A flower held captive by a thread so slight
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer
Are, light as the wind, with every wind astir,
Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.
O dainty nursling of the field and sky!
What fairer thing looks up to heaven’s blue,
And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning’s dew?
Thou winged bloom! thou blossom butterfly!”