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Deadly☠️ To avoid

☠️ Death camas

Toxicoscordion venenosum · Melanthiaceae

🍁 North America
🧠 To remember it"Smells like garlic, I eat it; smells like nothing, I leave it." Follow your nose before your eyes: the onion/garlic smell is the safest test to rule out death camas AND identify an Allium.
Death camas — Toxicoscordion venenosum

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Bulbous plant dangerously similar to edible camas, with which it often shares the same wet spring meadow. Only reliably recognized when flowering: cluster of small cream-white to greenish-white flowers (never blue), with six tepals each bearing a characteristic yellow-green gland at the base. Bulb and leaves alone are virtually indistinguishable from those of edible camas.

  1. cream-white to greenish-white flowers, never blue
  2. yellowish-green gland at the base of each tepal
  3. dark brown bulb identical in appearance to edible camas
  4. often grows mixed with edible camas in the same meadow
Size15-60 cm in flower
FloweringApril-June
Habitatwet spring meadows, mountain slopes, often directly mixed with Camassia quamash, from British Columbia to the Southwest

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Edible camas (Camassia quamash)death camas is deadly, edible camas is edible

To tell them apart: cream-white flowers (death camas) vs bright blue-violet (camas); outside of flowering, there is no reliable field method to tell them apart — you must identify and mark edible bulbs while they are in bloom

Wild garlic / wild onion (Allium spp.) (Allium spp.)death camas is deadly, Allium species are edible

To tell them apart: Allium species smell distinctly of garlic/onion when you crush the bulb or leaf; death camas has no alliaceous smell — this is the fastest and most reliable field test

Sources (4)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.