MUILLA.
Muilla maritima, Benth. Lily Family.
Root.—A small membranous-coated corm. Leaves.—Radical; linear; equaling the slender scape. Scapes.—Three to twelve inches high, bearing an umbel of small greenish-white flowers, subtended by several small lanceolate to linear bracts. Pedicels.—Five to fifteen; two to twelve lines long. Perianth.—Almost rotate; of six segments; two or three lines long. Stamens.—Six. Ovary.—Globose; three-celled. Hab.—The Coast, from Marin County to Monterey; also inland.
The generic name of this little plant is Allium reversed.
Though it has a coated bulb like the onion, it has none of its garlic flavor. It differs from the other umbellate-flowered genera of the Lily family in not having its flowers jointed upon their pedicels. It thus seems to be a link between the onion, on the one hand, and the beautiful Brodiæas and Bloomerias, on the other. It is not at all an attractive plant, though its blossoms are pleasantly fragrant.
It is found on the borders of salt marshes and in subsaline soils in the interior, as well as upon high hills in stony soils.
Another species—M. serotina, Greene—common upon inland hills in the south, is quite a delicate, pretty flower. Its greenish-white blossoms, with dainty Nile-green anthers, are nearly an inch across, and each segment has a pale-green mid-nerve. The plant has a number of very long, slender leaves, and its flower-stems are sometimes two feet tall and very slender.