[Illustration: NUTTALL’S DEATH CAMASS WILD HYACINTH]
Aquatic plants; leaves alternate, often basal; sepals 3, petal-like;
petals 3, sepals and petals partly united; ovary 3-celled.
Nuttall’s Death Camass (_Toxicoscordion nuttallii_) is a common prairie
bunch-flower from Texas to Tennessee and Kansas. The leaves, which are
mainly basal, long, narrow, and curved, and the stout stems 1-2 feet
high arise from a large black-coated bulb which is poisonous. Many
cream-colored flowers are borne in a round-topped cluster. The 3 sepals
and 3 petals are alike, and the 6 stamens have large yellow anthers. The
3-beaked capsules have numerous seeds. The flowers bloom in April and
May. The poisonous bulb is responsible for the name, which is derived
from the Greek meaning “poison-onion.”
Wild Hyacinth (_Quamasia hyacinthina_) is also called indigo-squill or
meadow hyacinth. Growing from a deep-rooted edible bulb, a slender stalk
1-2 ft. high bears a spike-like cluster of hyacinth-blue flowers at the
top. The flowers are about ½ inch broad and have a most delightful
fragrance. It is widespread from Pennsylvania to Texas, common in Texas
along railroads in April.
[Illustration: PRAIRIE ONION CROW POISON]
Prairie Onion (_Allium nuttallii_) has short flower stalks 4-6 inches
high growing from a very small bulb which has a brown, finely-woven
outer coat. The flowers are nearly half an inch broad and vary from pale
pink to a deep rose. _Allium_ is the Latin for “garlic,” and both the
cultivated garlic and onion are members of this group. There are nearly
twenty different wild onions in the state, many of which make lovely
garden plants. _Allium mutabile_, a taller onion with very numerous
white flowers, blooms in May. The prairie onion is the same as Heller’s
onion (_Allium helleri_) and blooms in April.
Crow Poison. False Garlic (_Nothoscordum bivalve_) is one of the first
flowers to appear in the spring on lawns, meadows, and roadsides
throughout the Southern States and may bloom again in the autumn. It
looks very much like the onions, but has fewer, larger flowers on long
stalks and does not have the onion odor. It grows from an onion-like
bulb. The name is from the Greek meaning “false garlic.”
[Illustration: FINE-LEAVED TREE-YUCCA SOAPWEED]
Beargrass. Fine-Leaved Tree-Yucca (_Yucca elata_) belongs to a group
widely represented in Texas by many different forms, those with thin
thready leaves being known as beargrass, soapweed, “palmillo,” and
Adam’s needle and those with thick, stiff, sharp-pointed leaves as
Spanish bayonet or dagger. All have creamy or greenish-white bell-shaped
drooping flowers borne in dense clusters on a long stalk growing out of
a rosette of leaves. The fine-leaved tree-yucca sometimes grows 20 ft.
high and is very abundant west of the Pecos River to Arizona. The
budding flower stalk is quite tender and palatable and was often used as
a food by early settlers. It is an excellent food for cattle, and they
keep the stalks stripped of budding shoots, making the absence of seed
pods quite conspicuous on the cattle ranges. Indians used the leaf
fibers for making sandals.
Soapweed (_Yucca glauca_), the common yucca of the Panhandle of Texas
and adjacent states, has an unbranched flower stalk. As in other yuccas,
the roots yield soap when the bark is removed and crushed in water. The
fruits of the stiff-leaved tree-yuccas are edible.