Allium przewalskianum

Description

Allium przewalskianum (synonyms: Allium jacquemontii) is an Asian species of wild onion in the Amaryllis family. The species is widely distributed in mountains areas in the Himalayas (India, Nepal, Pakistan) and parts of China (Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan). Allium przewalskianum has narrow bulbs up to 10 mm across. Scape is up to 40 cm tall, round in cross-section. Leaves are tubular, about the same length as the scape. Umbel is densely crowded with many red or dark purple flowers. Allium przewalskianum is one of two species referred to as jimbu in Nepal, used in Nepalese cuisine. The other is Allium hypsistum. 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. Plants of the genus Allium produce chemical compounds, mostly derived from cysteine sulfoxides, that give them a characteristic onion or garlic taste and odor. Many are used as food plants, though not all members of the genus are equally flavorful. In most cases, both bulb and leaves are edible.