Twinleaf onion

Description

Allium anceps, known as twinleaf onion and Kellogg's onion, is a species of wild onion native to the western United States. It is widespread in Nevada, extending into adjacent parts of California, Idaho, and Oregon. It grows in barren clay and rocky soils. Flowering plants This perennial herb produces a flowering scape from a bulb up to 2 cm (3⁄4 in) long and wide. There are up to 5 bulbs, sometimes wrapped together in the brown or yellow-brown outer coat. There are two flat, smooth-edged, sickle-shaped leaves up to 26 cm (10 in) long. The scape is erect, up to 15 cm (6 in) tall, and flattened with winged edges. It bears an umbel of 15 to 35 flowers with two spathes at the base. The star-shaped flower is roughly 1 cm (1⁄3 in) wide with six greenish-veined pink tepals. The six stamens are tipped with yellow anthers bearing yellow pollen. Once the seeds mature the scape dies and breaks off, usually along with the leaves. The bulbs are edible and were a food source for the Northern Paiute, who roasted them and pressed them into cakes. Allium is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants that includes hundreds of species, including the cultivated onion, garlic, scallion, shallot, leek, and chives. The generic name Allium is the Latin word for garlic, and the type species for the genus is Allium sativum which means "cultivated garlic". Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Allium in 1753. Some sources refer to Greek ἀλέω (aleo, to avoid) by reason of the smell of garlic. Various Allium have been cultivated from the earliest times, and about a dozen species are economically important as crops, or garden vegetables, and an increasing number of species are important as ornamental plants. The decision to include a species in the genus Allium is taxonomically difficult, and species boundaries are unclear. Estimates of the number of species are as low as 260, and as high as 979. Allium species occur in temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere, except for a few species occurring in Chile (such as A. juncifolium), Brazil (A. sellovianum), and tropical Africa (A. spathaceum). They vary in height between 5 cm and 150 cm. The flowers form an umbel at the top of a leafless stalk. The bulbs vary in size between species, from small (around 2-3 mm in diameter) to rather large (8-10 cm). Some species (such as Welsh onion A. fistulosum and leeks (A. ampeloprasum)) develop thickened leaf-bases rather than forming bulbs as such.