It is found in most of California from the coasts to the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and in the Klamath Mountains in southwestern Oregon, but not in either state's desert regions.

[1] Wavy-leafed soap plant grows on rock bluffs, grasslands, chaparral, and in open woodlands.

[1][2] Like all the soap plants, Chlorogalum pomeridianum is a perennial that grows from a bulb, which is brown, between 7 and 15 cm in diameter, slightly elongated, and covered in thick, coarse fibers.

[9] In February 1847 Patrick Breen of the ill-fated Donner Party recorded that a Native American gave the starving settler some "roots resembling Onions in shape [that] taste some like a sweet potatoe [sic], all full of little tough fibres."

The bulbs also had various medicinal uses, both external (e.g., for making a poultice to be used as an antiseptic, or as a rub in cases of rheumatism) and internal (decoctions were used for a range of purposes, including as a diuretic, as a laxative and against stomachache).