Rice root (Fritillaria camschatcensis) is an edible bulb of the Pacific Northwest that was an important food source for native Americans.  It is also fairly well known as an ornamental, more often going by the name chocolate lily or Kamchatka lily.  Foragers may know it better by its less appealing names, such as skunk lily or outhouse lily, which result from the odor of its flowers.  Happily, we’re not eating the flowers and the bulbs have no unpleasant odors.  Sadly, the name rice root does not refer to the flavor of the bulbs, but their size.  Rice root forms one main bulb that can grow to about the size of a finger joint and a number of smaller bulblets that look a little bit like grains of rice.  Why bother with a plant that yields such a small edible product?  It is a nice dual use plant.  You can get a few meals out of a flowerbed at the end of the growing season, harvesting the larger main bulbs and tossing the rice-like offsets back to grow again the next year.  And, of course, my focus is on breeding.  Plants like rice root can be fun to breed, because there is nowhere to go but up.