LILY FAMILY : ; ^ 



(Liliaceae) 



Usually perennial herbs, with regular and symmetrical 

 flowers, the parts almost always in 3's or multiples of .S in- 

 serted under the pistil. Petals and sepals are generally alike 

 in shape and color, and are spoken of collectively as the 

 perianth. Fruit a pod or berry. 



MUILLA (Muilla serotina, Greene). A sprightly little 

 flower of the spring, growing in grassy places in the plains and 

 foothills of Southern California. The small, wheel-shaped, 

 6-parted blossoms are greenish-white, about half an inch across, 

 and disposed in umbels of 40 to 70 flowers each, at the summit 

 of a naked stalk, 1 to 2 feet tall, rising out of a bulb. Leaves 

 all basal, about as long as the flower stalk, and very narrow. 



There is another and less attractive species, M. maritima, 

 Wats., with 5 to 15 blossoms in the umbels, found about salt 

 marshes and in alkaline spots of Central California and 

 Western Nevada. 



The name Muilla is evidence that even scientists have their 

 playful moods. Backward it spells Allium, the botanical term 

 for onion, to which Muilla is akin though lacking its odor. 

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