Anticlea elegans

Anticlea elegans, formerly Zigadenus elegans, is also known as mountain deathcamas, elegant camas or alkali grass. It is not a grass (though its leaves are grass-like), but belongs to the trillium family, Melanthiaceae.

It has white lily-like flowers and two-pronged, greenish-yellow glands on each petal (the shape of which can help in distinguishing it from other members of the genus). It is widely distributed through western North America, but absent from California. In Canada its range extends from Quebec and New Brunswick to the Yukon Territory and into Alaska. Plants on the western side of the continent tend to be smaller in size than their eastern counterparts, but have more densely clustered flowers. The plant may be toxic as has been shown for related Toxicoscordion venenosum and T. paniculatum. In sheep, Anticlea elegans has been shown to have an average minimum lethal dose of 60 g of green plant per kg of body weight, compared to 5 g/kg for Toxicoscordion nuttallii.

Meriwether Lewis, while on the course of his expedition in 1806, collected a specimen near the Blackfoot River.