Sego Lilies Save Lives

Iron Pen Marathon, Utah Arts Festival - Prompt was given at 6:00 on Friday, and I had 24 hours to write it, using the picture of a sego lily. I received Honorable Mention in Non-Fiction...

 

Elegant, fluted sego lilies bloom in May and June, along the old Pony Express Route, as riders on their speeding horses, run in relays, across the Great Basin to carry the mail to western towns. The flowers grow in grasslands, pine and juniper forests, sagebrush plains and prairies, in most of Nevada and all Utah Counties, as well, as other Western states.

The Basin is a huge watershed area where rain water does not run to the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, but sinks into the earth. When Brigham Young arrived with the settlers in 1847, and said, “This is the Place,” he was faced with a harsh landscape where Native Americans had accommodated their needs with the existing conditions.

The sego lily is a sacred plant to Native Americans and is thought to mean “edible bulb,” and they considered eating the sego lilies’ bulbs, a delicacy. They taught the pioneers how to use the badly-needed food; a year after the pioneers arrived, drought and a plague of crickets, devastated the crops and the bulbs were roasted, boiled, or turned into porridge, saving the pioneers’ lives

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Sego lilies were identified by Professor Nuttall, a naturalist, after he found them along the Upper Missouri River, and the species was named after him

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 The Professor accompanied an entrepreneur, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, who invented ice cutting tools, revolutionizing the ice trade, plus, shipped refrigerated garden produce until his death in 1856; he had spent the winter months at Fort Vancouver, Washington and proceeded back to Liberty, Missouri, and finally, home to Boston.

 

Although the expedition had not been a commercial success, Wyeth returned with Nuttall’s collection of plants, previously unknown to botany. The following year, he was again accompanied by Professor Nuttall who collected and identified 113 species, including sagebrush and “mule’s ear,” a sunflower genus.

Kate C. Snow, President of the Daughters of the Pioneers, wrote in a letter, "between 1840 and 1851" - food became very scarce in Utah due to a crop-devouring plague of crickets and that….

"the families were put on rations, and during this time they learned to dig for and to eat the soft, bulbous root of the sego lily. The memory of this use, quite as much as the natural beauty of the flower, caused it to be selected in after years by the Legislature, as the floral emblem of the state.”                                                           

 

By the 1880s, those early settlers, who had ate the bulbs, the size of marbles to walnuts, as the Indians before them, felt it set them apart from the newcomers to the Salt Lake Valley. The old-timers thought that to suffer through the hard times of the early Utah colonization showed their tenacity and righteousness. They deserved the badge of virtue - “bulbeater.”

 

A census of school children was taken before State Senator William N. Williams introduced Senate Bill No. 226 naming the sego lily as Utah's state flower, and the legislation signed on March 18, 1911.

Throughout the years, the flowers have been honored, in songs and poems. Daughters of the American Revolution in Davis County selected Sego Lily as the name of their chapter, based on a poem, author not named,

“Your slender stem and modest leaves crown you a flower gem,
like you, our Utah gropes with eager hands " For food and beauty in the desert lands."

The sego lily was a symbol of home, mercy, and peace during World War I and World War II. In 1941, the year I was born, Karl E. Fordham composed a song titled "Sego Lily," the song's lyrics include "Tho' afar from Utah's flow'ry hills I roam/ Or fighting in the ranks of men/ Fair flow' the Sego Lily of my home/ shall bid my heart return again."

In today’s society, people are becoming more aware of the need to conserve water - the average rainfall in Utah is approximately 13-inches per year in comparison to over 30-inches on the east coast. Conservation does not mean to do landscape without color.

 

A new use has been found for the flowers’ beauty, and to save, not lives, but to conserve water. Sego Lily Gardens, 2.5 acres is located at 1472 E. Sego Lily Drive (10200 South) in Sandy, UT.   Hours - Mon - Sat. 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., closed on Sundays.

“As you walk through the gardens, please take time to read the interpretive signs and plant identification tags designed to help you learn about water conservation principles, practices and plants,” to create your own water-wise landscapes…

            Sego lilies, Species, C. nuttallii - For food and beauty in the desert lands….

Author's Note

This is about the history of the pioneers, including Latter Day Saints/Mormons coming to the Salt Lake valley....

Reviews

[Will Neill]

This is a very informative piece, I always believe its always a good day when you learn something new, well constructed.
Will

[Diane Lockard]

I love history, and especially, when I find a new twist; it is a common complaint, I have to be careful, not to veer too far off the path when researching... Thank you for stopping by...

[SyberRose]

I never heard of this lily before...I will have to look it up and see it what it looks like...a beautiful write as always Diane...and congratulations on the mention too...nicely done...I enjoyed...Rose:)

[Diane Lockard]

I appreciate your comments, and as I told Tate I haven't been on the Cafe as much, lately, but hope to be on a regular schedule soon! Enjoy our chats... Diane

[SyberRose]

Well thats good Dianne...hugs