[Plant-biology] Re: Identify Ohio plant

[Vinson Doyle]

You can tell the garlic from the onions by the flattened leaves.  Onions
have rounded, hollow leaves.



On 7/3/07, Carol Paliwoda <capaliwoda from yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> monique <monique from mail.bio.tamu.edu> wrote in
> news:f6b3cj$kji$1 from news.tamu.edu:
>
> > Carol Paliwoda wrote:
> >> Can anyone identify this plant found in an Ohio field (pointed white
> >> bulb on end of long stalk)?  Pictures at
> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpal/
> >
> > Almost certainly a species of _Allium_, the genus that includes onions
> > and garlic.
> >
> > M. Reed
> >
>
> A reply I got in sci.bio.botany quoted:
> "It's garlic, Allium sativum, a rocambole or hardneck form.  The stalks
> will straighten and the structure on top will develop into a bunch of
> tiny topsets, sometimes with abortive flowers.  When the topsets dry
> they will drop off and grow into a single clove the following year,
> and a small bulb the year after, also putting up a stalk with topsets.
>
> You can go back later this summer and dig up the small bulbs and eat
> them or plant cloves to get more bulbs next year.  The topsets can
> become a bit of a pest in the garden, but you can eat the young plants
> from them in the spring as 'green garlic', just like green onions.
>
> Garlic is an old world plant, not native to Ohio.  Most garlic varieties
> for cold climates are hardneck forms like this.  The 'hard neck' is the
> remains of the stalk.  Warm climate garlics are usually softneck forms.
> They don't put up a stalk."
>
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