It is said to grow up through the snow; on the contrary, it always waits until the ground is warm, though with other early flowers it is occasionally buried or half-buried for a day or two by spring storms.

The entire plant--flowers, bracts, stem, scales, and roots--is fiery red.

Its color could appeal to one's blood.
Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant.

Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved.

Without fragrance, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers.
Far the most delightful and fragrant of the Valley flowers is the Washington lily, white, moderate in size, with from three- to ten-flowered racemes.