Ball-head onion

Allium sphaerocephalon, the round-headed leek or ball-head onion, is a bulbous herbaceous perennial of the Amaryllidaceae family native to most of Europe (except the north and north-west), North Africa, and western Asia eastward to Iran, and naturalised in scattered localities in eastern North America. From a small ovoid bulb up to two centimetres across, often bearing one or more bulblets at its base, rises a slender, smooth, leafy stem thirty to ninety centimetres tall. The two to five very narrow, almost cylindrical, hollow leaves clothe the lower stem, withering by flowering time. In June and July the stem terminates in a small, dense, almost spherical or egg-shaped umbel of many tiny bell-shaped deep purplish-red to wine-red flowers with protruding stamens, sometimes mixed with darker bulbils. The species favours dry, calcareous, sunny grassland and rocky banks.