Soap Plant
(Chlorogalum pomeridianum)
"The leaves of the soap-plant have been with us all the spring, increasing in length as the season has advanced…If you would find its flowers open, you must seek it in the afternoon. At a little distance it appears as though the truant summer wind had lodged a delicate white feather here and there upon the branches…to us the root is the most interesting part of the plant. This the early Californians used extensively in lieu of soap and esteemed greatly as a hair tonic…it was known by them as amole."
—Mary Elizabeth Parsons,
The Wildflowers of California, 1897
