Wild garlic |
The wild garlic often has no flowers, but only bulbils
| Allium vineale L.: | |
| Blooming period: | June–August |
| Height: | 25–70 cm |
| Flowers: | missing or bisexual and radiate, stamens: 6, styles: 1 |
| Tepals: | 6, red or whitish green |
| Leaves: | alternate, 2–4 in the lower half of the scape, underneath the middle they are hollow |
Plants perennial, herbaceous. The bulb is up to 2 cm thick, egg-shaped, with membranous, brownish or yellowish shells and forms daughter bulbs.
Stem erect, rounded, smooth, solid, glabrous, slender and unbranched.
Leaves 2–4, alternate, parallel-veined, the upper one sometimes in the upper half of the scape, linear, 2–4 mm wide, 20–60 cm long, near the base hollow, forming a half-amplexicaule leaf sheath.
The scape ends in a spherical or hemispherical pseudo umbel, which initially is covered with a membranous, up to 2 cm long beaked husk leaf which is rounded at the base. During the ripening it rips and releases the inflorescence with sessile bulbils and/or up to 50 1-2 cm long stalked flowers.
If flowers are present, they consist of 6 identically formed, upright, red-violet, greenish or white petals. There are 6 stamens with purple anthers and an inferior ovary that consists of 3 fused carpels. It bears a stylus with a capitate stigma.
After insect pollination, mainly by bees, are formed 2- to 6-seeded, ovoid, 3–4 mm long capsules with 3 locules. The black, wrinkled, about 3 mm long seeds are flattened on one side. The plants reproduce also by forming daughter bulbs and bulbils. Plants highly variable.
| Floral formula: |
| * P3+3 A3+3 G(3) inferior |
Occurrence:
Roadsides,
fields, embankments, pastures, vineyards. Grows preferential on
slightly shady, warm, nutrient-rich soils.
Distribution:
Europe,
Western Asia and North Africa. In Australia and North America
introduced, where it is invasive.