Today, people can examine a small plant that once kept Native Americans busy on Whidbey Island.

Au Sable Institute presents its annual Prairie Days celebration on a remnant of prairie south of Coupeville. Cal DeWitt will speak. At 10 a.m., Russell Link, author and wildlife biologist, will discuss creating backyard wildlife sanctuaries. At 11:30 a.m., take guided tours of the prairie.

The environmental institute purchased the state game farm at 180 Parker Road and is reviving, restoring and studying a Pacific Northwest ecosystem.

Camassia quamash, the common camas, is a small lily. Unlike statuesque and fragrant Stargazers and Casablancas, camas hugs prairie ground. Most of the time, grasses and more robust plants hide the camas.

Native Americans in the Northwest relied on camas bulbs as a dependable food source.

To keep prairies, the plant’s preferred home, arable, Native Americans regularly burned the land. Fire kept encroaching trees from gaining ground and eliminated shrubs that might smother camas.

After European colonization in the 1850s, Whidbey prairies became farms and pasture land. By 2005, Whidbey Island sports more asphalt and concrete than prairie.

The dense growth of camas that once turned Whidbey Island prairies blue are gone. Camas bloom in few remaining remnants of prairie.

No one depends on the bulb for food. Now, only select, cutting-edge nurseries stock camas. The bulb has yet to capture interest of companies that cultivate heritage breeds of livestock and plant foods.

But camas is attracting more attention in the Pacific Northwest.

Great Plant Picks highlighted camas on its 2005 list.

The Elizabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden at University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture, releases the list each year. Plants must be vigorous and easy-to-grow and disease- and pest-resistant, www.greatplantpicks.org states. Bulbs do not need to be moved for at least three years.

Au Sable began removing established Nootka rose and snowberry thickets years ago. After stripping off moss — the only thing that grew under the smothering bushes — prairie plants including camas have returned to reclaimed areas.

Some of these bulbs may have been dormant for 50 years, Au Sable environmentalists have said.

Gardeners’ interest in camas may help the plant off another list.

Camas is on the Redlist of America’s Endangered Foods (RAFT) and listed as “threatened.” The Web site www.environment.nau.edu/raft, explains camas isn’t in danger of disappearing yet. Because of renewed interest in the plant and through ecological restoration, it continues to survive. But camas may not stay viable long, unless larger scale growing occurs.

If more people cultivate camas, however, the plant might spread and naturalize fields and swaths of yard.

In time, mats of camas might again turn Whidbey blue in spring.

In the next few decades, Au Sable may throw a camas cookout so people can sample camas — a flavor of Northwest history.