Another Allium without a label

[Magnar]

I have too many label-less Alliums.

What would you call this one? It is about 40 cm tall and flowers in August here.

[TheOnionMan]

I have too many label-less Alliums.

What would you call this one? It is about 40 cm tall and flowers in August here.

Magnar, this looks like Allium senescens in one of its many forms (or as I've previously presented, the European race of what was called senescens is now A. lusitanicum, the gray-leaved Asian form senescens remains that namesake). There's no leaves shown, so other possibilities include closely allied species, like angulosum.  I see that it has sprounting bulbils in the inflorescence, this can and does happen on A. senescens forms quite often.  It also might be a senescens-hybrid or lusitanicum-hybrid because these onions are notiously promiscuous and interbreed with abandon, yet retain the general look of "senescens".

[Magnar]

Thank you.

I have been thinking of A. senecens myself.. Will check the leaves in the spring, not much left of them now.

[John85]

Magnar
Your A. senescens looks very blue compared with the one i grow.Is that the real color or is it the picture or is there that much color variation?

[Magnar]

Magnar
Your A. senescens looks very blue compared with the one i grow.Is that the real color or is it the picture or is there that much color variation?

It is the true colour of the plant, and I only have this one so I don't know how much colour variation ther is within the species.

[TheOnionMan]

The color looks consistent with the range of color seen in this group, varying from a pale to deep lavender or lilac pink (along with good pink and rose tones, and rarely including white), but I draw the line on calling such things blue.  For nearly three decades I have written at length about a bogus misnomer going around as Allium tanguticum 'Blue Skies', which is not A. tanguticum at all (a bulbous species not in cultivation, with red-violet flowers), but is instead a pallid pinkish-lavender selection of A. senescens var. montanum (now A. lusitanicum); a rhizomatous species.  Unfortunately, this horticultural blunder has irreparably embedded itself into the horticultural world, to a significant extent fueled by large growers that either unwittingly parrot the mistake, or worse, knowingly perpetuate the blunder in spite of repeated attempts to educate them about the gross misidentification, such as in the second example below where even the grower/supplier of the plant has been unable to convince the nursery of the mistake.

http://tangsphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/WILDFLOWERS-PLANTS/G00009eB3JW4SJbk/I0000V_FbcB5qdnE
http://www.mzbulb.com/dp.asp?pID=AL15&c=152&p=Allium+Tanguticum+Var.+Blue+Skies

I was surprised to see the following link, where a regional large wholesale nursery (Sunny Border in Connecticutt) has taken an applaudable leap forward towards enlightenment, by offering Allium lusitanicum 'Blue Skies".  The plant still isn't blue, but at least it is taxonomically correct now, regardless of an old mischaracherized cultivar name.  The flower color in this link looks accurate, a light lilac pink color.
http://www.sunnyborder.com/plant-catalog/item/Allium/ALLBS.html