Fritillaria

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Chocolate Lily, Mission Bells, Scarlet Lilly

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Fritillaria montana flowers
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Fritillaria
Category
Kingdom	Plantae
Division	Magnoliophyta
Class
Order	Liliales
Family	Liliaceae
Species in this genus
Fritillaria affinis Fritillaria alburyana Fritillaria alfredae Fritillaria amabilis Fritillaria amana Fritillaria anhuiensis Fritillaria ariana Fritillaria armena Fritillaria assyriaca Fritillaria atrolineata Fritillaria aurea Fritillaria ayakoana Fritillaria baskilensis Fritillaria biflora Fritillaria bithynica Fritillaria brandegeei Fritillaria bucharica Fritillaria byfieldii Fritillaria camschatcensis Fritillaria carica Fritillaria caucasica Fritillaria chlorantha Fritillaria chlororhabdota Fritillaria cirrhosa Fritillaria collina Fritillaria conica Fritillaria crassicaulis Fritillaria crassifolia Fritillaria dagana Fritillaria dajinensis Fritillaria davidii Fritillaria davisii Fritillaria delavayi Fritillaria drenovskii Fritillaria dzhabavae Fritillaria eastwoodiae Fritillaria eduardii Fritillaria ehrhartii Fritillaria elwesii Fritillaria epirotica Fritillaria euboeica Fritillaria fleischeriana Fritillaria forbesii Fritillaria frankiorum Fritillaria fusca Fritillaria gentneri Fritillaria gibbosa Fritillaria glauca Fritillaria graeca Fritillaria grandiflora Fritillaria gussichiae Fritillaria hermonis Fritillaria imperialis Fritillaria involucrata Fritillaria japonica Fritillaria kaiensis Fritillaria karelinii Fritillaria kittaniae Fritillaria koidzumiana Fritillaria kotschyana Fritillaria kurdica Fritillaria lagodechiana Fritillaria latakiensis Fritillaria latifolia Fritillaria legionensis Fritillaria liliacea Fritillaria lusitanica Fritillaria macedonica Fritillaria maximowiczii Fritillaria meleagris Fritillaria meleagroides Fritillaria messanensis Fritillaria michailovskyi Fritillaria milasensis Fritillaria minima Fritillaria minuta Fritillaria monantha Fritillaria montana Fritillaria mughlae Fritillaria muraiana Fritillaria mutabilis Fritillaria obliqua Fritillaria olgae Fritillaria olivieri Fritillaria oranensis Fritillaria orientalis Fritillaria pallidiflora Fritillaria pelinaea Fritillaria persica Fritillaria pinardii Fritillaria pontica Fritillaria przewalskii Fritillaria purdyi Fritillaria pyrenaica Fritillaria raddeana Fritillaria recurva Fritillaria regelii Fritillaria reuteri Fritillaria rhodia Fritillaria rhodocanakis Fritillaria rixii Fritillaria ruthenica Fritillaria sewerzowii Fritillaria shikokiana Fritillaria sibthorpiana Fritillaria sichuanica Fritillaria sinica Fritillaria skorpili Fritillaria sororum Fritillaria spetsiotica Fritillaria sporadum Fritillaria stenanthera Fritillaria straussii Fritillaria stribrnyi Fritillaria taipaiensis Fritillaria theophrasti Fritillaria thunbergii Fritillaria tokushimensis Fritillaria tortifolia Fritillaria tubiformis Fritillaria unibracteata Fritillaria ussuriensis Fritillaria uva-vulpis Fritillaria verticillata Fritillaria viridea Fritillaria viridiflora Fritillaria walujewii Fritillaria whittallii Fritillaria yuminensis Fritillaria yuzhongensis Fritillaria zagrica
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Aden Earth Zone

3 - 7

Cultivation

Cultivation: Naturalizing
Light: Dappled, Shade
Soil: Rich
pH: 7
Moisture: Wet

Characteristics

Form: Herbaceous
Habit: Perennial
Flower: Large, White, Brown
Fruit/Seed:
Foliage: Leaves, Green
Uses: Ornamental

About

"Fritillary" redirects here. Fritillary butterflies are several genera in the brush-footed butterfly tribes Heliconiinae and Nymphalinae.

Fritillaria is a genus of about 100 species of bulbous plants in the family Liliaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name is derived from the Latin term for a dice-box (fritillus), and probably refers to the checkered pattern, frequently of chocolate-brown and greenish yellow, that is common to many species' flowers. Collectively, the genus is known in English as fritillaries; some North American species are called missionbells.

Description and uses

File:Fritillaria crassifolia.JPG

Fritillaria crassifolia showing the characteristic features of most fritillaries: nodding flowers with some amount of brown and a checkerboard pattern

They often have nodding, bell- or cup-shaped flowers, and the majority are spring-flowering. Most species' flowers have a rather disagreeable scent, often referred to as "foxy," like feces or wet fur.<ref>"explanation of foxy odor of Fritillarias". http://stephenwarrington.com/2010/04/foxy-fritillaria-michailovskyi/. </ref> The Scarlet Lily Beetle (Lilioceris lilii) eats fritillaries, and may become a pest where these plants are grown in gardens.

Several species (such as F. cirrhosa and F. verticillata) are used in traditional Chinese cough remedies. They are listed as chuān bèi () or zhè bèi (Chinese: 浙貝), respectively, and are often in formulations combined with extracts of Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica). F. verticillata bulbs are also traded as bèi mǔ or, in Kampō, baimo (Chinese/Kanji: 貝母, Katakana: バイモ). F. thunbergii is contained in the standardized Chinese herbal preparation HealthGuard T18, taken against hyperthyroidism.

Most fritillaries contain poisonous alkaloids such as imperialin; some may even be deadly if ingested in quantity. But the bulbs of a few species – e.g. Checker Lily (F. affinis) or Yellow Fritillary (F. pudica) – are edible if prepared correctly. They are not generally eaten in large amounts however, and their edibility is therefore still somewhat debatable.

At least one species, F. assyrica, has a very large genome. With approximately 130,000,000,000 base pairs, it equals the largest known vertebrate animal genome known to date – that of the Marbled Lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) – in size.

The emblematic and often unusually-colored fritillaries are commonly used as floral emblems. The Snake's Head Fritillary (F. meleagris) is the county flower of Oxfordshire (UK) and the provincial flower of Uppland (Sweden) where it is known as kungsängslilja ("Kungsängen lily"). In Croatia this species is known as kockavica, and the checkerboard pattern of its flowers is held to be the inspiration for the šahovnica pattern on Croatia's coat of arms. The Kamchatka Fritillary (F. camschatcensis) is the floral emblem of Ishikawa Prefecture and Obihiro city in Japan. Its Japanese name is kuroyuri (クロユリ), meaning "dark lily". F. tenella is the floral emblem of Giardino Botanico Alpino di Pietra Corva, a botanical garden in Italy.