From a Crack in the Rocks
Moab
The Sego Lily, Calochortus gunnisonii, grows across the Colorado Plateau in a variety of environments and landscapes. This Sego Lily grew up through a crack in a pile of sandstone rocks along the trail in Hidden Valley south of Moab. The Sego Lily is easy to identify with its three broad, small pointed petals; these petals are white, lilac, or yellow in color. The Sego Lily is the state flower of Utah, so voted by the state legislature in 1911; it was chosen in a census of Utah school children’s preference for a state flower. In the 1840s, a crop devouring plague of crickets left food scarce in Utah and the Mormon pioneers learned to dig for the Sego Lily’s soft, bulbous root as a food source. Photo © copyright by Chris Eaton.