This perennial member of the lily family is highly poisonous. Zigadenus venenosus contains an alkaloid poison more potent than strychnine. Most of the fatalities are among livestock which graze in meadows. There have been poisonings in humans too since the young plant looks very similar to the edible nodding onion. The best way to tell these two species apart are to examine the bulb. Camas has an oval bulb covered with blackish scales. Nodding onions smell like onions; death camas smells foul.

The plants are among the first to come up in spring. The leaves grow from the base, grass-like. Stems grow above the leaves from 20 to 50 cm tall. White-yellow flowers make a fine display. In our grasslands, whole hillsides of the flowers adorn the slopes amid yellow bells and other early bloomers.

First nations people used the mashed bulbs to make poison arrows for hunting. There is also a mountain death-camas which is similar, still poisonous, but has a narrower spike of terminal flowers.

I mistakenly pulled a bunch of leaves of this plant once to munch on, but was warned by my friend Russ to examine it more carefully. I have not made this same error again.