Columbia Tiger Lily Lilium columbianum – Native Plant of the Week

Introduction

The Columbia Tiger Lily or Lilium columbianum is a beautiful true lily of the Liliaceae family. For most of my life, its familiar bloom greeted me in late spring throughout the summer in the southern half of British Columbia where I have spent most of my life. The pretty orange blossoms with their unique turban-shaped features are difficult to confuse with other species. I love seeing them on the sides of the road in late spring and early summer when they are at their peak.

But nothing breaks my heart more than watching people pick handfuls of the beautiful flowers, clearly not recognizing the damage they are doing. Anytime you pick a flower from the wild you are preventing it from reproducing. In some cases, you are dooming the entire plant and all of its future offspring. The flowers of virtually all plants give rise to the fruits and/or seeds that are the next generation. While the Columbia Tiger Lily is still somewhat common, I have noticed it becoming less common in areas where I have witnessed them being picked.

The Columbia Tiger Lily, Lilium columbianum, was an important staple food source for many native peoples in western North America. It is still sometimes gathered and eaten as food, but please follow good Ethical Wildcrafting principles if you want to try this.

In recent years Lilium columbianum has been becoming more and more available commercially. I love the idea of our beautiful native plants being made available commercially. As long as gardeners purchase their seeds or bulbs from a native plant supplier who propagates themselves and does not harvest from the wild that is. Particularly if it is native in your area, please buy some seeds and grow them in your own yard. You will not be disappointed! See the section on Growing Columbia Tiger Lily below for more information.

Description of Columbia Tiger Lily

Stem & Leaves

A variable but usually tall plant on slender stems up to 1-2 m tall. Sometimes they may be shorter, even as low as 15 cm tall when found growing in subalpine conditions. They grow from highly variable-shaped elongated bulbs up to 5 cm in diameter.

The thin stems have anywhere from 3 – 20 whorled leaves arranged equally around the same node. As you go up the stem towards the flowers the leaves become only partially whorled then scattered. Its leaves are more or less elliptical in shape to wider near the tip (apex) and narrower at the base (oblanceolate) and are anywhere from 1.5 – 15.5 cm long. The apex (tip) is always sharply pointed to varying degrees (acute to acuminate). The leaves are always at least twice to several times longer than they are wide. Leaf margins are often smooth but may be slightly wavy (undulate).

Flowers & Fruits

The flowers bloom anywhere from May to September, depending on elevation and latitude. They are beautiful, but not fragrant. Flowers are bright, showy, light orange nodding flowers with maroon-purple to reddish spots on their six tepals. Being a lily they have ‘tepals’ in that their sepals and petals appear virtually identical and are not easily distinguished. The tepals are characteristically reflexed, bending backward so far they often touch their tips together at the back of the flower. The shape is often referred to as Turk’s cap or turban shaped.

The anthers are yellow to orange in color and are borne on exserted filaments in that they extend out of the flower beyond the tepals. Flowers from northern populations typically have more exserted stamens (anthers + filaments) than those in the southern end of its range.

There are anywhere from 1 and up to 15 flowers per stem in favorable conditions. The flowers are pollinated by rufous hummingbirds and swallowtail butterflies. In late summer or early fall, they produce a seed capsule 2.2 – 5.5 cm long.

Similar Species Frequently Confused With

• Lilium kelloggii – this plant may hybridize with Lilium columbianum in the southern part of its range which can make it hard to identify. However, L. kelloggii is not found north of Oregon. Its flowers are more fragrant than not but are also reflexed. However, the tepals are always more pink than orange, sometimes with orange stripes.
• Lilium occidentale – this plant has a very limited range, being found only along the coast in southwestern Oregon and northwestern California. The flower tepals are reflexed but are very red in color.
• Lilium pardalinum – this plant may hybridize with Lilium columbianum in the southern part of its range making them hard to identify. However, it is also not found north of southernmost Oregon. It is a highly variable species with many subspecies. In general, however, its tepals are always varying shades of red towards their tips, orange towards their base. While the tepals are reflexed they are typically not as reflexed as Lilium columbianum.
• Lilium philadelphicum – this is the only other one that Lilium columbianum could be confused within eastern British Columbia, Canada as it is the only other ‘Tiger Lily’ that grows there, and the only area where it overlaps L. columbianum in range. These are easily distinguished however by the usually red or darker orange tepals that are never reflexed.

Habitat & Growing Conditions of Columbia Tiger Lily

Though its range is somewhat limited, it is common where it does grow and it adapts to a variety of different ecosystems. It can be found in clearings, meadows, forest edges, and on roadsides, particularly in the mountains where they have been less picked. They also grow in a variety of forest types including scrub, mixed or coniferous. The Columbia Tiger Lily also tolerates a wide range of elevations, being found anywhere from 0 – 1800 m above sea level.

Lilium columbianum typically grows in partial shade but can be found in full sun or full shade. In full shade they are more lanky with less flowers. They prefer rich loamy soil types as long as they are well-drained soils. They do not grow in waterlogged soils.

Growing Columbia Tiger Lily in Your Garden

Native species are fantastic additions to your garden. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, once established these will require little to no maintenance and they provide important wildlife and biodiversity values as well as their aesthetic beauty. Please purchase seeds or bulbs from a native plant supplier who propagates themselves and does not harvest from the wild that is. Seeds are a better choice if you are uncertain where the supplier is getting their bulbs from, there are some available in the Amazon Affiliates section at the bottom of this article.

When started from seed Columbia Tiger Lily takes 3 – 5 years to mature before it produces and significant bulbs and abundant flowers. If you already have bulbs you can divide them or gently remove the bulb scales to more quickly produce new plants. Share your bulbs around with your friends in the Pacific Northwest and have them grow them too!

Be sure you have a spot with rich loamy soil. If not, dig up a roughly 70 cm cubic pit of soil out of your chosen spot and fill it with rich loamy soil. Plant your seeds, bulbs or plants and amend the surface with organic compost for food and water retention. Keep it moist but not wet, wet soil can cause basal rot.

If your land is prone to waterlogging be sure to also dig out a pit of soil but add sand and gravel to the bottom of the pit and mix a little sand into your loamy soil. Then plant the bulbs or seeds in a raised mount of soil. This will help keep them drier than the surrounding land. Waterlogged plants are prone to basal rot which will kill the plant.

Winter Maintenance

Columbia Tiger Lily is a herbaceous perennial so the above-ground growth will die back each fall. Once the leaves have all died you can cut it down. If you live in a particularly cold area you could put some mulch over the bulbs in the winter to protect them. Then when spring comes you can dig them up and divide the bulbs, if desired.

Pests and Other Problems

Aphids may attack your plants as they are fond of most lilies. If this is the case spray them with diluted neem oil as a safe treatment. Neem works great on aphids and will not harm the plants.

Wildlife Values of Columbia Tiger Lily

Multiple native pollinators visit the Columbia Tiger Lily including butterflies, birds, bees (native and honeybees), and more. Though native peoples ate the bulbs on a regular basis it is not certain if wildlife ever feed on the bulbs.

Distribution of Columbia Tiger Lily Lilium columbianum

Columbia Tiger Lily is endemic to western North America, being found nowhere else in the world. In Canada, it is found throughout the southern half of British Columbia. In the USA it is found throughout most of Washington, the northern tip of Idaho, the extreme northwest corner of Montana, western Oregon, and the northwest corner of California. It is found nowhere else in North America.

Status of Lilium columbianum

Columbia Tiger Lily is considered Secure (S5). However, it is only secure in British Columbia, Canada. It is considered Imperiled (S2) in Montana, USA where it has an extremely limited distribution. In Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California it is as yet Unranked, sadly as is the case with so many of our native US plant species. Clearly, the USA needs to do more to assess its plant populations so that they can be adequately ranked.

Traditional or Other Uses of Columbia Tiger Lily

The Columbia Tiger Lily has a long history of use as a staple food source by native peoples in western North America. The following groups of people were all noted as using it as a source of food whether eaten fresh, steamed, dried, etc. They include: Clallam, Klallam, Lummi, Nitinaht, Okanagan, Okanagan-Colville, Quileute, Quinault, Samish, Shuswap, Skagit, Swinomish, Skokomish, and Thompson.

The flavor has been described anywhere from peppery and tasty, somewhat resembling chestnuts to varying levels of bitterness. The flavor likely varies between different regions as well as harvest times. Bulbs were usually gathered in the late summer or early fall after the flowers had died off. Sometimes, however, they were also harvested in the spring. They were gathered and then steamed in pits and eaten warm, or eaten later cold with oil. The Thompson people would also boil them with salmon roe during the salmon runs and eat it as a favorite dish among their people.

Columbia Tiger Lily bulbs were also processed and stored as a winter food staple. After steaming they would be dried and made into storage cakes with dried meat or berries, especially saskatoon berries. They would then be eaten throughout the winter in cakes or added to soups.

There are no references found for using Lilium columbianum for medicinal purposes. Other closely related lily species were used in various medicinal preparations, but no medicinal uses for Columbia Tiger Lily were found. However, the Okanagan-Colville people would mix the mashed bulbs with stinkbugs to ward against ‘plhax’ in a form of witchcraft medicine.

Ethical Wildcrafting of Lilium columbianum

Ideally if you live in the Pacific Northwest try growing these beautiful flowers in your garden. See the section above for more information. If you still want to try the bulb of the Columbia Tiger Lily as a wild food, first be sure that the population is secure in your area. Then be sure to find a nice large and healthy population. If you find just a few plants or a single plant please leave them alone to reproduce.

When wildcrafting follow the 1 in 20 rule for plants as described in the Ethical Wildcrafting post. For every 20 plants you see, you can harvest one. Since you are digging the bulb you will no doubt kill the plant during harvest so please stick closely to the 1 in 20 rule. To help aid in propagation wait until the flowers have died and the seeds have formed. This way, when you harvest the bulbs you can scatter the mature seeds so that they will grow into new plants.

Wildcrafting and Processing Tips

When you dig the bulbs please do not use a shovel as it will damage the bulbs as well as the roots of surrounding plants. Instead, use a digging stick as these are far less damaging. A digging stick is any short, sturdy stick that won’t break when you dig the soil with it. You can bring your own or find one along the way. Dig into the ground just out from the base of the plant until you find the bulb(s). Once dug, brush the dirt off the bulbs and place them in a basket of some kind and bring them home to process them.

To prevent molding bulbs should be processed soon after picking. To process bulbs simply clean them and steam them or cook them in a pit in the traditional way. Some sources mention that drying them for a couple of days in the sun first may help remove some of the bitter flavors. But, as this bitterness is variable and subjective, you could try it either way.

Please, if you are trying this, do so in moderation. The days of using wild food for subsistence living in North America are for the most part long gone. This is thanks to invasive species, habitat destruction, and other harmful human practices that threaten our wild plant populations. It might be fun to try, but it is no longer a lifestyle we can choose to live if we want our native species to survive in the future.

References and Resources

Canadensys Plant Search https://data.canadensys.net/vascan/search

Dictionary of Botanical Terms – by Lyrae’s Nature Blog https://lyraenatureblog.com/blog/dictionary-of-botanical-terms/

Eflora Plants of North America http://www.efloras.org/browse.aspx?flora_id=1

iNaturalist Plant Search https://www.inaturalist.org/home

Native American Ethnobotany http://naeb.brit.org/

Natureserve Explorer https://explorer.natureserve.org/Search

USDA Plants Database https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home

Willis, Lyrae (2021).  Plant Families of North America.  Not yet published. 

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