All about Sego lilies

All parts of those sego lily species are edible. Do not eat these plants without making a positive identification with a good field guide or the advice of an experienced botanist..
Do not to confuse the widely scattered sego lily with another member of the Liliaceae family, the death camass. (.
Iin contrast to the single bluegreen blade of the sego lily shoot, death camass has two to six bright green leaves break through the soil at about the same time. All parts of the death camass are toxic, and the fact that the sego lily, wild onion, and death camass often grow side by side—sometimes within inches of one another—makes proper identification essential and difficult.
I cannot find any law protecting the plants legally but since they are becoming musch less common, I would never dig them or eat them.
I only know of one couple who grew them in their garden successfully. They had a dry, xeric garden that they did not water. Overwatering is certain death for these plants.
I am frequently asked where to buy sego lilies. There are a few available from people who rescue them from construction areas, but they don't transplant well. One vender who advertises on ksl.com and Craig’s list is at the Farmers market at pioneer Park in Salt Lake City.
Sego lilies are native throughout the arid West. If you want to try to grow some, seeds are available from some native-plant societies, and there are other species of Calochortus genus that are available through catalogs.
Botanically, the sego lily is Calochortus nuttalli. Calochortus is a genus that contains 65 species, including the sego and mariposa lilies.
The plant gets its name from Thomas Nuttall, a naturalist, who collected the sego lily in 1811 while traveling along the Missouri River.
Sego-lily flowers are typically white, but some other members of the species have lilac or yellow flowers. The plant has a single grass-like, bluish-green leaf.
They bloom in dry areas along desert roadways and dry, sunny areas along the foothills. They prefer areas between 5,000 and 8,000 feet in altitude.
The flowers are beautiful, but that is not how they got to be the state flower. They are revered here because they saved the lives of many early settlers.
Native Americans, who considered the plant to be sacred, used the bulbs for food. Sego is a Shoshonean word thought to mean "edible bulb." Native American roasted them, boiled them or made them into a porridge dish.
The sego lily is the Utah state flower because of its historical significance in feeding the early settlers. A member of the lily family, it is commonly called the mariposa lily. The name comes from the Spanish word for butterfly because Spanish explorers thought the beautiful mountainside flowers looked like butterflies.
The bulbs were eaten raw, boiled or roasted but obviously should not be dug for consumption today because of the scarcity of the plant.
On March 18, 1911, the Utah Legislature declared the sego lily as the state floral emblem. It was selected after polling schoolchildren about their preferences for a state flower.
I have never eaten the bulbs but am told they are nutritious and quite tasty. Because they are not common, leave the plants to nature. If you dig the bulb, you will likely kill the plant.