False Hellebore
Veràtrum Califórnicum
Greenish-white
Spring
West
The leaves of this plant are its conspicuous feature. A few near the top are long and narrow, but most of them are boat-shaped, with heavy ribs, and from six to twelve inches long. They are bright yellowish-green and, although somewhat coarse, the general effect is distinctly handsome, as we see masses of them growing luxuriantly in rich, moist meadows and marshes in the mountains. When they first come up in the spring, the shoots are packed into green rosettes, in which the leaves are intricately folded, but they soon grow to a height of three to six feet. The flowers are beautiful, in fine contrast to the coarse foliage. They measure about half an inch across and are cream-white, streaked with green, and form a fine cluster about a foot long. The flowers are far prettier and the plants handsomer than their eastern relations and they flourish at an altitude of six to nine thousand feet. The plants are supposed to be poisonous to cattle, but in a recent bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the State of Washington, it is reported as being a popular food with horses and sheep, particularly the latter, which eat it greedily and without ill effects.
There are several kinds of Hastingsia, perennials, with bulbs or rootstocks; the stamens on the base of the perianth, with swinging anthers; the ovary with a very short stalk and short style.
Reed-lily
Hastíngsia álba (Schoenolirion)
White
Summer
Oreg., Cal., Nev.
An attractive marsh plant, with a smooth, stiff, bluish stem, over three feet tall, springing from a cluster of long, narrow, sword-like leaves. The slightly sweet-scented flowers are white, about half an inch across, forming a long, graceful, fuzzy wand of bloom, which has a pretty silvery effect and looks interesting at a distance, but is not very striking close by, as the flowers are too colorless. The seeds are black and shiny.
False Hellebore—Veratrum Californicum.
Reed Lily—Hastingsia alba.
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."