Hi everyone,
I bought two chive plants from a local nursery. They have both bloomed and they have different flowers on them although they were marked as the same plant. At least I think they are different. Is one just a more spent version of the other one? The plants look identical, too, except for the flowers. Am I cracking up??
And this is the other flower on the other plant.
Yes, ScotDeerie, you're cracking up. Go lie down.
But seriously, it really could be either. Have you bruised the leaves to see if they smell different? It looks like a different cultivar to me.
I'm not sure, but think that you may have chives and garlic chives there.
I agree looks like chives and garlic chives. Look carefully at the leaves garlic chives have flat leaves, chives round.
If it is garlic chives, it will set little seed bulbs when the bloom it done. They are good to nibble, add to food or reseed. My garlic chives are finishing up right now ~ forming the bulblets...
Both leaves look the same: round. As for scent, I'm afraid spring allergies are making everything smell like... well... *nothing*. Someday, when my sense of smell returns, I might get to do the smell test.
pod, I have a little section of garlic chives and they haven't formed anything but chives. When they form the bulblets, do you do anything with them? I mean, eat them, or dry them to plant later, or for heaven's sake destroy them before they eat your cat?
Brigidlily ~ yes and yes and I wish they would start! You can nibble the bulblets or use them in cooking and save some to reseed. In fact, they will fall to the ground and reseed without drying.
Now, about those cats....
I have garlic chives that I grew from seed. The leaf is flat and the flowers are white balls, but with more of a ball like form than the one you have in your picture. I think yours is a wild onion. Garlic chives produce little black seeds, not bubils.
Here are pictures of Garlic Chives ( which I grow a whole bed of each year). Here is a flower:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/26226/
Here are the leaves, flat not round, about 3/8 inch wide.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/86650/
Here is a flower in the process of seeding. Note the black seeds:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/60876/
The one you have looks like a wild garlic. Check out these listings from plant files under genus ornithogalum. I think what you have is kind of like that. The one with the purple flower is regular chives with round leaves.
Garlic chives leaves are stir fried and served as a vegetable in Asian food and are thought to have medicinal properties.
What about society garlic. Mine has round leaves and a similar bloom?
Great pictures! I have garlic chives galore. I bought a few from students at a local middle school. They had a sale of all of the fruits of their classroom labor to raise money to run their greenhouse. The chives came in a Dixie cup. I paid a quarter. Best quarter spent ever.
Garlic chives produce little black seeds, not bubils.
Podster, what can I say? Lots of alliums have bubils but not garlic chives. Look at Plant Files. Buy a package of the seed. You get black seeds not bubils.
Yours may also be known as garlic chives but they are a different plant from mine. Here is where Latin names really helps, but we aren't likely to get a Latin name for yours. The Latin name for mine is Allium tuberosum. It would be cool if we could get the Latin name for yours.
P'mt ~ After I posted, I poured thru my book collection. I could find no reference to garlic chives producing bubils. I stand corrected. Too bad DNA can't be done on plants to ID them. This one is vintage, edible and hardy in this zone. My apologies... : ) but I do love mine...
BTW, need to add ~ thanks for the allium direction. I am going to start researching them. I have two pots of Ivory Queen starting to bloom. I like the allium too.
This message was edited Apr 26, 2007 7:28 AM
You could do DNA fingerprinting for the two. It ain't cheap to do. You would have to find a university plant genetics lab that is set up for doing DNA fingerprinting though. You can do that to anything that has DNA, but like I said it definitely ain't cheap.
Podster,
Just because yours isn't garlic chives doesn't mean it isn't delicious. There are a number of tasty members of the allium family, yours is obviously one. Many grow wild but are easily tamed. I am attempting to grow some seed some wild alliums known all over Germany and other parts of Europe. They are yummy. They are called ramsons I learned, but who ever heard of that?
Scotdeerie,
Do you know anyone who can key out a plant? You could get them to look at it and tell you what it is. I wouldn't give up on eating it.
Eygyptian walking onion looks similar to garlic chives and form bulbets. There are pictures in the plant files .
I have walking onions and neither plant in question look like my walking onions (good try ) Petersons wildflower guide has wild garlic and field garlic both with bulblets at the top.
Petersons also has a wild onion it has'' a showy umbel of 6-point lavender flowers and grass like leaves''. That may be the first plant in question.
DNA is out for me! I'd rather spend it on plants... I also have the walking onions. They are neat and tasty but they have no blooms. The suspect allium I have does bloom first. We also have an abundance of wild onions in this area. Their blooms are a little more sparse than those in ScotDeeries' photo.
Hi Podster,
I think your plant is Allium canadense var. canadense, 'Meadow garlic', 'Canada garlic' .
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/allcan.html
Thanks for the suggestion Susan_C, that photo of the bulbils and blooms sure look like it. That is also an interesting link, I will save it and tour it. Also added it and changed it in my journal. Now, my apologies for the thread distraction and thanks much.
