Anticlea elegans, commonly known as mountain deathcamas, elegant camas, or glaucous death-camas, is a trillium-relative in the flowering plant family Melanthiaceae.

[7] The linear leaves are smooth in texture and sprout mostly from base of the plant, with average lengths between 1 and 2.5 cm (0.39 and 0.98 in) and a maximum width of 15 mm (0.59 in).

[9] In sheep, Anticlea elegans has been shown to have an average minimum lethal dose of 60 g of green plant per kilogram of body weight, compared to 5 g/kg for Toxicoscordion nuttallii.

Nuttall did not provide a type specimen, listing instead a distribution from the St. Lawrence and Niagara Falls west along the shores of the great lakes and then upstream along the Missouri River to Fort Mandan.

vaginata, the Alcove Death Camas or Sheathed deathcamas, was first described by botanist Per Axel Rydberg (1912) in his Studies on the Rocky Mountain Flora XXVI.

This was based on the idea that only Zigadenus glaberrimus had an elongated root structure, and all the species assumed to only have bulbs were shifted to the related genus.

A broadly described Zigadenus was maintained by botanists until molecular analysis by Wendy Zomlefer and Walter Judd (2002) showed the grouping to be polyphyletic.

A team of researchers lead by Emily Palmquist investigated the possible genetic and morphometric differentiation between the two species, with their 2015 study results being published in the journal Systematic Botany.

Based on analysis of both aspects, the team determined that the hanging gardens populations are nearly indistinguishable from A. elegans and moved A. vaginata to subspecies status.

Increasing temperatures and changing biotic conditions pushed A. elegans habitat higher in elevation, but some groups were trapped in the hanging gardens areas resulting in genetic isolation.

The conditions of the hanging gardens influenced the plant morphology, yearly reproductive cycles and began the process of genetic drift.

[18] As a whole, Anticlea elegans is widely distributed through western North America, but absent from California and the southern southeast United States.

In northeastern North America, the subspecies is found through Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, but it is absent from the eastern maritime provinces of Newfoundland, Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.

[18][6] The hanging gardens are ecological hot spots where perennial springs occur in desert canyon wall alcoves supporting year round plant populations.

Each group consisted of over 1000 plants covering 0.1–0.2 ha (11,000–22,000 sq ft) above the tree line on flat rocky areas of the mountain slope.

The patches were monitored on July 31, 2023, with flower visitors being captured, identified, recorded, and eventually deposited in the California Academy of Sciences.

[21] A different subalpine site at Webber Lakes in the Idaho Beaverhead Mountains west of Yellowstone National Park was studied on July 28, 2020.