Wild Garlic Views

• General Goods

This spring, I've learned to easily distinguish wild garlic from wild onions. The garlic has thin, tall, dark green, round, hollow leaves and looks like clumps of grass. I've identified two varieties of wild onions. One with dark green, slightly glossy leaves and the other has slightly wider leaves and are a lighter green. They often grow right alongside each other and the ditches are absolutely full of them. They both taste very good. One may be a Drummond onion, but can't be for certain on the exact species.

valereee, wild onions have flat leaves. And so what if all alliums look alike? All alliums are edible. Wild garlic has round hollow leaves. I already posted this. In most areas, you're not going to have that many different varieties and if you're referring to a lawn, probably just one. And if people can't smell the leaves and bulbs and see if they smell like onions or not, there really is no hope. It's a true no brainer. Some people should just admit they don't like onions anyway and just move on.

In central Texas, there are at least two varieties of wild onion. Drummondii, which has the darkest green leaves with a slight gloss to them and Allium canadense, which has a slightly wider leaf and is a gray-green color. It has a net-like sheath on the bulbs as opposed to drummondii, which has a regular papery membrane on the bulbs. I can't tell the difference in taste and love them both. Wild garlic is easily distinguished from a distance and looks like clumps of dark green grass with straight leaves that don't droop. It bugs me when people complain about these tasty gifts from mother nature invading their lawns , which consist of all imported grass and require tons of chemicals and maintenance to keep.

valereee, the most common allium lookalike around here is crowsfoot/false garlic. It does resemble wild onions somewhat but I find it easy to tell the difference. Crowsfoot blooms all the time and the flowers don't look like onions while onions only bloom once and for a short time. And of course, any non-allium has no onion smell to it. Just pinch and smell.