Death Camas Revisited

It turns out that wild onion also has long, flat, narrow basal leaves that are similar to the death camas.  The wild onion's flower stem is round and stiff just like those of the death camas and not hollow like a green onion.  This helps me understand how someone could confuse the two if they pick the plant in the early spring before the flowers appear.

On Pajarito Mountain today, I picked the basal leaves and flower stem of a death camas and sniffed but could detect no onion odor. I "washed" my fingers off on wet vegetation of golden banner since I didn't know which part of the death camas is poisonous. 

Now I read in Wikipedia that all parts of the plant are poisonous.