Description
Brodiaea purdyi is another of California’s serpentine endemics with the added ‘complication’ that it is also a vernal pool inhabitant and these rare and vulnerable wild plant habitats are being wiped out by agriculture. The plant is reputed to reach 25cm. tall, but flowering specimens here make only a third of this, with full-sized flowers 2cm. flowers on 3cm. flower stalks in late in June. The flowers are bright violet with waxy white staminodes which serves instantly to distinguish it from B. stellaris. It is quite unlike B. minor the only other plant with which it is sometimes compared.
Pedigree stock raised from seed of PJC 936 originally found at the edges of vernal pools near Chico, in Butte County, California where I found it, with Wayne Roderick, in the 1980s. Despite its rarity this is not a difficult plant given standard treatment for the genus.
