Fairy-lantern

Calochortus albus, the white fairy-lantern or white globe-lily, is a slender bulbous perennial in the Liliaceae growing 20–80 cm tall from a deep-seated, fibrous-coated bulb. A single, narrowly oblanceolate basal leaf 20–50 cm long persists through flowering; cauline leaves are reduced, linear, and bract-like, often with bulblets in their axils. The stem is wiry, branching above into a few-flowered, openly cymose inflorescence. The nodding, globe-shaped flowers are 2–3 cm long and consist of three small green sepals and three much larger, broadly obovate white to pinkish-white petals that curve inward to form a closed lantern; each petal bears a slightly fringed gland near the base on the inner face. Stamens are six and the ovary is three-angled. Fruit is an oblong, three-winged, nodding capsule containing many flat seeds. It is endemic to California, growing on shaded, often rocky slopes in oak woodland and chaparral from the central Coast Ranges to the western Sierra Nevada foothills, flowering in spring.