Prairie Shooting Star Seeds (Dodecatheon pulchellum)

The sublime prairie shooting star (also commonly called the dark throat shooting star) is a kind of meadow miracle, giving rise to magenta blossoms – striking in both color intensity and form. The strongly recurved blossoms are fringed at their base by a yellow ring, under which five stamens converge to create a beak-like form. These flowers (sometime variable in color from white to almost purple) are visited intently by bumble bees which affix themselves to the business-end of the flower, causing the entire stem to bob up and down as they go about their work of pollen-collecting. The rosette of basal leaves are likely caterpillar food for two of our beautiful blue Lycaenidae butterflies – the Arctic Blue (Plebejus glandon) and the Sierra Nevada Blue (Plebejus podarce). This is the most widespread of the western shooting stars, ranging from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains, and from Alaska to southward into Mexico. Prairie (or dark-throated) shooting star’s scientific name h