Field garlic

Allium oleraceum, the field garlic, is a bulbous perennial in the family Amaryllidaceae reaching about 30 cm tall. From a small underground bulb up to 2 cm across, it produces two to four narrow, semi-cylindrical leaves and a slender, usually rounded but occasionally flattened, flowering stem. The terminal inflorescence is a loose umbel of small, stalked, pinkish-brown to greenish flowers, often interspersed with numerous tiny aerial bulbils, the whole subtended by papery bracts whose long tapering points often greatly exceed the flowers themselves. Native across most of Europe and extending into Turkey and the Caucasus, the species favours dry, sunny calcareous grasslands, steep grassy banks and rocky slopes of river floodplains. It is sparingly naturalised in scattered parts of North America. All parts smell strongly of garlic when bruised; the bulbs, young leaves, flowers and bulbils have long been eaten in small quantities as a wild garlic flavouring.