Flowering Plant, No Flower

 
This is a case of me simply procrastinating about looking something up. These grow throughout our field. I've known it was one of the wild garlics (hey, it smells and tastes like garlic- I've even cut up some stems to cook with), but I didn't know which one. I could never seem to find it in flower. You'd think after ten years or so I might catch on.



Anyway, this week I tried to look it up, even without a flower. Well, guess what! Although it's a flowering plant, it often has no flower at all, just those little green tails growing from the bulblets. So I'm not totally unobservant. It can have flowers, little white ones, but mine apparently don't like to expend that much energy. It propagates by dropping the bulblets.

It's field garlic, Allium vineale.


Here's the bad news. It's alien. Here's the really bad news. It's considered an invasive problem species because when livestock eat it, it taints the milk and meat with garlic flavor. Bummer. I had thought it was kinda cool-looking. Now I'll have to learn to not like it. I can keep on eating it, but I can't eat fast enough to get rid of it.

	See Ramps (another Allium)
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