Roger's Pick: White Sea Squill

Just when most summer gardens are beginning to turn down a notch or two, a four to six foot glorious white flower stalk with hundreds of individual flowers per stalk erupts out of sun baked soil at this time of year.

The White Sea squill (urginea maritima), a bulbous plant in the liliaceous family from the vast areas of the Mediterranean region, can be called the harbinger of autumn.

It was first cultivated in England about 1648 in the Oxford Botanical garden and was named by Carl von Linnaeus (father of botanical nomenclature) in the 17th century as scilla maritima but was changed later to ur...