Chlorogalum pomeridianum

John Ingram asked about this plant at a time I was too busy to respond. I
hoped someone else would field the answer, but I don't think they did. He
wondered if a plant he had seen with Delphinium cardinale that he thought
was a green spider plant could have been Chlorogalum pomeridianum. I'm not
sure what plant he means by a green spider plant (hymenocallis?). John
could you perhaps give us a scientific name of what you thought it was?

We had a picture of Chlorogalum flowers as a cover for an issue of BULBS
and offered prizes to people who could identify it. Two Southern California
people were able to do it. Unfortunately the picture was a scan of a print
and it didn't enlarge very well at all which made identification even harder.

Chlorogalum pomeridianum is a bulb found on grassy road banks, open
meadows, and slopes in southern Oregon and California. It has basal
rosettes of attractive wavy margined leaves that appear late winter and
widely branched panicles of fragrant starry flowers that bloom in summer on
stems to 2 1/2 ft. (76 cm.) The flowers open late afternoon, are pollinated
by night insects, and fade by morning. Flowers appear over a long period.
All parts of this plant were used by native Americans in a variety of ways
including using the lather from the crushed bulb for bathing, washing
clothes, and as a shampoo. From this use comes the common name of this
plant, Soap Plant.

I've made a page for the wiki and added some pictures taken yesterday of
plants in my garden. It is hard to take a picture of the flowers since it
opens so late it is usually in the shade or there isn't much light. Bob put
cardboard behind it so the camera would focus on the flower but doing that
means you can't really appreciate how it looks so we'll try again. It is a
plant I am fond of. I like the leaves and the starry flowers are quite
charming. I make a point of looking for it in my garden when I know it is
going to open. I often see the leaves when I am out hiking as it is very
common here, but the flowers are never open then. I have grown if from seed
and relocated some to a better part of my garden when it was dormant late
fall. The bulb is huge in established plants. It seeds itself a bit around
my garden but is carefree so I usually don't dig all the seedlings out.

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

There are other species of Chlorogalum. Two of them are found in other
parts of the state so I don't think they could be what John saw. Two others
that are found in Southern California have flowers that open during the
day. One, C. purpureum, has purple flowers and is found in the
south-central Coast Ranges. Another C. parviflorum is found on dry coastal
sage scrub from central and southern California to Baja. It is described in
Bulbs of North America. For some strange reason the other species are not
included. There might be pictures on the Jepson Herbarium web page of the
different species and I understand Calflora is also back online.

I find it quite fascinating that this genus which was another one that was
included in Liliaceae in The Jepson manual is slated to join Camassia in
the Agavaceae family.

I hope this helps.

Mary Sue