[Illustration]
[Sidenote: =Amole Soap Plant=
_Chlorógalum pomeridiànum_
=Silvery-white
Summer
California=]
There are several kinds of Chlorogalum. This odd plant springs from
a big bulb, which is covered with coarse brown fiber and often shows
above the ground. The leaves are sometimes over two feet long, with
rippled margins, look like very coarse grass, and usually spread out
flat on the ground. The plants are conspicuous and look interesting
and we wonder what sort of flower is to come from them. Then some day
in late summer we find that a rather ugly, branching stalk, four or
five feet tall, has shot up from the center of the tuft of leaves.
The branches are covered with bluish-green buds, and we watch with
interest for the bloom, but we may easily miss it, for the flowers
are very short-lived and come out only for a little while in the
afternoons. In the lowlands the flowers are rather scattered and
straggling, but in Yosemite they are lovely, close by. Each flower
is an inch or more across and looks like an airy little lily, with
six spreading divisions, white, delicately veined with dull-blue, and
they are clustered along the branches, towards the top of the stalk,
and bloom in successive bunches, beginning at the bottom. When they
commence to bloom, the tips of the petals remain caught together until
the last minute, when suddenly they let go and spring apart and all
at once the dull stalk, like Aaron's rod, is adorned with several
delicate clusters of feathery silver flowers. The thread-like style is
slightly three-cleft at the tip and the capsule has one or two blackish
seeds in each cell. The bulbs form a lather in water and are used as
a substitute for soap by the Indians and Spanish-Californians, and as
food by the Pomo Indians, who cook them in great pits in the ground.
_Pomeridianum_ means "in the afternoon."
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Soap Plant--Chlorogalum pomeridianum.]
Wild Onions are easily recognized by their characteristic taste and
odor. They mostly have coated bulbs; their leaves are long and narrow,
from the base; the flower-stalk bears a roundish, bracted cluster of
rather small, white, pink, or magenta flowers, on slender pedicels,
their six divisions nearly alike and each with a stamen attached to its
base. The bracts enclose the buds, before blooming, in a case and the
capsule contains six, black, wrinkled seeds. There are numerous kinds,
very widely distributed, not easily distinguished, some resembling
Brodiaea, but the latter never smell of onion. _Allium_ is the Latin
for "garlic."
[Sidenote: =Pink Wild Onion=
_Állium acuminàtum_
=Pink
Spring, summer
Northwest=]
From four to ten inches high, with a few leaves. Before blooming, the
flower cluster is enveloped in two papery bracts, forming a beautiful
pink and white, iridescent case, the shape of a turnip, at the tip of
the stalk. Later these bracts split apart and disclose a cluster of
pretty flowers, usually very deep pink in color, the divisions each
with a darker line on the outside, the anthers pale-yellow. This is
very gay and attractive, often growing in patches on dry hillsides and
fields. The flowers last a long time in water, gradually becoming paler
in color and papery in texture. The bulb is marked with veins.
[Sidenote: =Wild Onion=
_Állium biscéptrum_
=Pink, white
Spring
Utah, Nev., Cal.=]
Six to ten inches tall, with two slightly thickish leaves, and usually
two slender flower stalks, each bearing a graceful cluster of starry,
white, pink or pinkish-purple flowers, each petal delicately striped
with pinkish-brown, the anthers pink, the ovary green, with three,
tiny, double crests. These flowers are exceedingly delicate and pretty,
growing among rocks in shady canyons. The bulb is usually red-coated.
The flower cluster of _Allium serràtum_ is much more compact than the
last and the pink flowers change to deep purplish-pink as they fade,
making a pretty, round, papery head, about an inch and a half across.
Common on low hills in California.
[Illustration: Wild Onion--Allium acuminatum.]
[Illustration: Wild Onions.
Allium bisceptrum.