Crow-Poison

True to it's name Crow-Poison, or False Garlic, is poisonous if ingested. Every bit of it is poisonous, you can not eat any part of the plant... leaves, roots, flowers, stems, nothing. This makes me glad this wilted and died before I could get it home because many of my unattended samples have been partially eaten. As an aside, samples I know have poisonous elements, like a cutting from a bush with white berries (I don't know what it is, but I can't think of any non-poisonous white berry), goes into a closed box.
This is a Southern plant; the farthest North it goes is Southern Illinois, but it's all over the Dixieland.
I learned a new word while looking up this lovely little plant: tepal. "Tepal" is actually the general term for all outer parts of the flower, but is usually used when the petals and sepals are indistinguishable. Crow-Poison is one such plant and the Rainlilies I covered recently also have tepals (Tulips as well).

Crow-Poison has six white tepals with a thin purple or brown stripe on the backs of each one. It has six stamen surrounding one pistil, all of them have yellow-green bottoms, white middles, and yellow tops. The 1 inch diameter flowers grow in bunches off the top of one 6-16 inch stem. The leaves are on the very bottom and grow almost as long as the stems and are only about 1/8 of an inch diameter (they're round as well). These flowers frequently grow in large patches covering yards and fields, but can be found alone. If you're looking to find these they actually flower both in the Spring and in the Fall, so you don't actually have to wait all year for them to turn up again.
They grow from bulbs, like onions or tulips. Actually they look a lot like wild onions except the flowers are bigger and there aren't as many on each stem (generally no more than 8 flowers on one stem). Since onions are okay to eat and these are not you need to remember Crow-Poison does not have any hint of a garlicy-oniony smell, they don't have much of any smell.

Despite it being a weed and poisonous, it's a pretty flower and a really awesome name.