Sea onion

Sea onions grow all over here. They look similar to Asphodilla ("Affodill" in German) which is my favorite flower in south of Greece and Turkey. They have a similar flowering and color but Asphodilla blooms from April until July or August and not now.

This autumn I sowed Asphodilla in the raised bed at home, let's see if it will be something. But now back to sea onion.

Drimia maritima - this is the official name - belongs to the family Asparagaceae and is known by several common names, including squill, sea squill, sea onion and maritime squill. In German it is also called sea onion ("Meerzwiebel").

It is native to southern Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa.

This plant grows from a large bulb which can be up to 20 cm wide and weigh 1 kg. In the spring, each bulb produces a rosette of about ten leaves each up to a meter long. They die away by autumn, when the bulb produces a tall, narrow raceme of flowers.

The flower is about 1,5 cm wide and has six tepals each with a dark stripe down the middle. The tepals are white, with the exception of those on the red-flowered form. The fruit is a capsule up to 1,2 cm long.

This plant often grows in rocky coastal habitat, especially in the Mediterranean Basin, where it is common. Its habit of producing leaves in the spring and flowers in the fall is an adaptation to the Mediterranean climate of its native range, where the summers are hot and dry.

It has been used as a medicinal plant since ancient times. Pythagoras wrote about it in the 6th century BC. Hippocrates used it to treat jaundice, convulsions, and asthma.

Its primary medicinal use was as a treatment for edema, then called dropsy, because of the diuretic properties of the cardiac glycosides. A solution of sea squill and vinegar was a common remedy for various ailments for centuries.

Pythagoras and Dioscorides recorded that people hung the bulbs with sprouted leaves outside the door in spring as protection against evil spirits. The bulbs are still gathered and displayed in the winter as part of Greek Christmas and new year's traditions.Read more