Dichelostemma capitatum(Benth.) Alph.Wood

blue dicks

WFO wfo-0000765266 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Cricket Raspet
fig. a Cricket Raspet, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-07 / obs. 196210575
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Jenny Ta
fig. b Jenny Ta, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195751575
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. c Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196125014
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by joergmlpts
fig. d joergmlpts, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197343245
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. e Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202807646
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Steve Woodward
fig. f Steve Woodward, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196626308
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. g Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195527516
Dichelostemma capitatum, photographed by James C. Davis
fig. h James C. Davis, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 195157166

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 17,107 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 17,107 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 18 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Brodiaea capitata Benth.
  • Brodiaea capitata var. alba Orcutt
  • Brodiaea capitata var. insularis (Greene) J.F.Macbr.
  • Brodiaea capitata var. pauciflora Torr.
  • Brodiaea insularis Greene
  • Brodiaea pulchella var. pauciflora (Torr.) C.V.Morton
  • Dichelostemma insulare (Greene) Greene
  • Dichelostemma lacuna-vernalis L.W.Lenz
  • Dichelostemma pauciflorum (Torr.) Standl.
  • Dichelostemma pulchellum var. capitatum (Benth.) Reveal
  • Dichelostemma pulchellum var. pauciflorum (Torr.) Hoover
  • Dipterostemon capitatus (Benth.) Rydb.
  • Dipterostemon insularis (Greene) Rydb.
  • Dipterostemon pauciflorus (Torr.) Rydb.
  • Hookera capitata (Benth.) Kuntze
  • Hookera pauciflora (Torr.) Tidestr.
  • Milla capitata (Benth.) Baker
  • Milla capitata var. pauciflora (Torr.) Baker

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.