Allium 2010

[Stephenb]

I've also tried Allium ampeloprasum kurrat which is an old perennial leek grown in Egypt and the near east. It was described in a Swedish book as excellent and hardy, but I've discovered that what was being grown under that name in Sweden is Allium ramosum! Genuine seed from Turkey didn't make it through the winter here (despite protection).

I would love to get hold of the following superb form, the Yorktown onion which has naturalised on a small scale in quite a few states in the US:

http://www.yorkcounty.gov/ychc/main/york_onion.htm
http://www.yorkcounty.gov/vce/progareas/....ACT%20SHEET.pdf
(Edit: Sorry these links don't seem to be working at the moment - just Google images of Yorktown Onion and you'll see some pictures)

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ALAM

Have you seen it, Mark? Any idea how big the bulbs are?

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks for spending time on this, Mark! I'm pretty sure it's not ampeloprasum (I'll post pictures of the various cultivars that I grow afterwards) - the leaves are narrow, but more details will have to wait to spring. Your picture of affine definitely looks like my plant (a definite affinity  )

However, I discovered another picture 2 years previously which I'm pretty sure is the same plant (or from the same original group of seedlings) and bulbil-less:

Well Stephen, in your latest photograph, it certainly looks much more like A. guttatum ssp. sardoum, perhaps because the flower head is more fully expanded and there are no bulbils.  Trying to ID alliums is full of pitfalls.... need to see flower heads at early anthesis (to see disposition of spathe valves, full anthesis, and possible even late anthesis (to see shape of flower head when capsules start forming), and most important, what the leaves look like.  Regarding the bulbils, I have experienced plants that for some peculiar reason produced bulbils one year but not in other years, an aberration of sorts.

[TheOnionMan]

Regarding Allium ampeloprasum, and the innumerable varieties and cultivars, this is practically a science unto itself.  The flowers shown in your Allium ampeloprasum "Oerprei" are certainly attractive, with those deep red anthers, and nice closeup photos too. 

The kurrat and porrum (leek) forms of A. ampeloprasum have been cultivated for thousands of years, and are only known from cultivation and are not known in the wild.  I find this whole realm of the genus of only minor interest personally, preferring not to be caught up in the quagmire of infinite leek and garlic cultivars, when there are so many certifiable species to learn about.   

In the so-called Yorktown Onion, it is a fully floriferous form of ampeloprasum, and sort of silly that it gets a name like "Yorktown" for the area in which it has invaded (as it is indeed a non-native invasive species there).  I tried your links, there are not working as you suggest, but here are a couple that do work (need to Google: yorktown onion allium, to weed out (pun intended ) getting google hits on stores named "yorktown onion".

Yorktown Onion allium
http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5036
http://www.yorkcounty.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=7242

[Stephenb]

Well Stephen, in your latest photograph, it certainly looks much more like A. guttatum ssp. sardoum, perhaps because the flower head is more fully expanded and there are no bulbils.  Trying to ID alliums is full of pitfalls.... need to see flower heads at early anthesis (to see disposition of spathe valves, full anthesis, and possible even late anthesis (to see shape of flower head when capsules start forming), and most important, what the leaves look like.  Regarding the bulbils, I have experienced plants that for some peculiar reason produced bulbils one year but not in other years, an aberration of sorts.

Thanks - I thought so too, but it didn't look quite so spectacular as the pictures you posted... I'll have to have a proper look at the leaves later on - I remember that new leaves appeared in the autumn. Of course, we could be looking at two different plants, but I think there was only one plant there.

You're looking a bit old and weary these days......too much avatar work, perhaps?

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks - I thought so too, but it didn't look quite so spectacular as the pictures you posted... I'll have to have a proper look at the leaves later on - I remember that new leaves appeared in the autumn. Of course, we could be looking at two different plants, but I think there was only one plant there.

You're looking a bit old and weary these days......too much avatar work, perhaps?

Not sure what's causing the aging, maybe my avatar should give up pipe smoking 
But other than being framed, that's a picture of me taken May 2008  (us McDonoughs don't age well, that's why I run, to stay ahead of the aging).

Regarding A. guttatum, neither subspecies sardoum or dalmaticum sprouted leaves in the fall that I can remember.  By the way, in Mathew's treatment on Allium section Allium, a new subspecies is defined, A. guttatum ssp. dilatatum, from Crete, white flowered with dark spot as in sardoum, but inner perianth segments to 5 mm long (2-4 mm in sardoum).

[Stephenb]

Mark: Good to see your Avatar is now a smokefree zone and that you are keeping ahead (by a few feet) of the ageing.

Here's a picture of a mystery Allium from a garden in Tromsø last summer. I think I posted it before but couldn't find it - in any case that would have been B.McM (Before McM, which is any time before December 13th 2009, today being 69 A.McM and a year's worth of posts (or 365) already (for a normal poster)! Keep it up.. the finishing line is a long way ahead....

Anyway, I don't think I've seen an Allium that looks like this before. Is this normal and diagnostic or should this be moved to the freaky aberrations thread? My friend gave me a plant, but it hasn't flowered yet. He had it as Allium acutiflorum (which made me think of Allium acutifolium which would describe it better - although that species doesn't exist).

[TheOnionMan]

Anyway, I don't think I've seen an Allium that looks like this before. Is this normal and diagnostic or should this be moved to the freaky aberrations thread? My friend gave me a plant, but it hasn't flowered yet. He had it as Allium acutiflorum (which made me think of Allium acutifolium which would describe it better - although that species doesn't exist).

It is an odd one isn't it?  I don't recall my plants having foliage that looked like that, yes the few leaves sheath the lower 1/5 to 1/3 of the stem, but the alternating zig-zag look on your plant seems odd.  It also seems to be stoloniferous, with stolons visible in both views.  Do the leaves have an alliacious scent if cut or bruised?  Also odd, given that A. acutiflorum is native to France and part of Italy, is the paucity of information and photos on the web... I can find only a few photos of the flowers, but nothing showing foliage.  The only decent flower photo is found on Paul Christian's RarePlants Nursery site, showing fine pink flowers, reminding me how much I liked this species when I did grow it for a number of years.

PS. I do remember seeing these photos in the B.McM SRGC days, in the Allium 2009 thread, and they similarly struck me as a somewhat bizzare plant not reminiscent of A. acutiflorum.

http://shop.rareplants.co.uk/popuplargeimage.asp?s=4rgwt7466253&strImage=4692.jpg&strImageType=version&strPageTitle=Allium acutiflorum

[olegKon]

Janis,
What I quoted is the book by Jurjeva&kokoreva "Diversity of alliums and their use" 1992 ("Луки-анзуры" chapter).

Oleg,
My book-library of botanical books in Russian stopped renewing at 1990-91. May be you can send me link of "Izdatelstvo Nauka" for I can again start ordering of botanical literature in Russian?
Janis
[/quote Sorry for the delay, Janis. The link is www.naukaran.ru

[TheOnionMan]

I'd like to share some interesting information on variability in Allium cristophii, that came by way of Kurt Vickery.  The following photos by Kurt show two collections of a plant with close affinity to familiar Allium cristophii, but with obvious differences:  beige-white flower color, much narrower tepals, dark red ovaries, and ribbed leaves that are densely hirsute.

Collection information is:
KV51 Iran Khorrasan 75km W of Bojnurd 1200m
KV60 As above 70km W of Bojnurd

Kurt comments: some years the inflorescence is 25cm accross! Also the withered leaf ends look like this in the wild.

I asked Dr. Reinhard Fritsch, noted expert on the genus Allium as they occur in Iran, for his opinion:
Several years ago I collected such plants in Turkmenistan as well as in Golestan reservation in Iran. Wendelbo (1970: tab. 26 fig. 1) accepted them as A. cristophii.

In this area also another truly red flowering potential subspecies of A. cristophii occurs, and a second one with rose flowers. I intend to describe all these taxa together as soon as I will be able to gather sufficient and reliable information, especially on leaf and scape characters as well as variation of flower parts. Sorry, at the moment I can only name it "A. cristophii s. lat."

Perhaps it should be no surprise after many years with A. karataviense only represented by a single color form, giving us little impression of the true variability of the species.  Well, along the same lines, we know A. cristophii as it's been cultivated and mass produced for many decades probably from a single form, but again it is still surprising to learn that this species too is actually highly variable.  I can just imagine a deep red or pink color form mentioned by Dr. Fritsch.

[Janis Ruksans]

I'd like to share some interesting information on variability in Allium cristophii, that came by way of Kurt Vickery.  The following photos show two collections of a plant with close affinity to familiar Allium cristophii, but with obvious differences:  beige-white flower color, much narrower tepals, dark red ovaries, and ribbed leaves that are densely hirsute.

Collection information is:
KV51 Iran Khorrasan 75km W of Bojnurd 1200m
KV60 As above 70km W of Bojnurd

Kurt comments: some years the inflorescence is 25cm accross! Also the withered leaf ends look like this in the wild.

I asked Dr. Reinhard Fritsch, noted expert on the genus Allium as they occur in Iran, for his opinion:

Several years ago I collected such plants in Turkmenistan as well as in Golestan reservation in Iran. Wendelbo (1970: tab. 26 fig. 1) accepted them as A. cristophii.

In this area also another truly red flowering potential subspecies of A. cristophii occurs, and a second one with rose flowers. I intend to describe all these taxa together as soon as I will be able to gather sufficient and reliable information, especially on leaf and scape characters as well as variation of flower parts. Sorry, at the moment I can only name it "A. cristophii s. lat."

Perhaps it should be no surprise, after many years with A. karataviense was only represented by a single color form, giving us little impression of the true variability of the species.  Well, along the same lines, we know A. cristophii as it's been cultivated and mass produced for many decades probably from a single form, and again it is surprising to learn that the species is actually highly variable.  I can just imagine a deep red or pink color form mentioned by Dr. Fritsch.

Plant of similar color from E part of Kopet-dag (Ashgabad to Arvaz, Tadjikistan) is pictured in my BURRIED TREASURES under name A. bodeanum, not accepted more and regarded as A. christophii by Dr. Fritsch. Few other my aquisitions from Iran side of kopetdag has bright purple flowers, two has very hairy leaves, two almost nude leaves. May be Reihardt is right that there are two subspecies (or more?) at present regarded as A. christophii.
Can't show you pictures of those at present. Here again heavy snowing and I can't reach my nursery before roads again will be cleaned. There are another computer with pictures in my office at nursery (15 km from my house). We have thickest snow cover in last 100 years. Think that tonight and tomorrow some more 10-15 cm will be added.
Janis

[TheOnionMan]

Plant of similar color from E part of Kopet-dag (Ashgabad to Arvaz, Tadjikistan) is pictured in my BURRIED TREASURES under name A. bodeanum, not accepted more and regarded as A. christophii by Dr. Fritsch. Few other my aquisitions from Iran side of kopetdag has bright purple flowers, two has very hairy leaves, two almost nude leaves. May be Reihardt is right that there are two subspecies (or more?) at present regarded as A. christophii.
Can't show you pictures of those at present. Here again heavy snowing and I can't reach my nursery before roads again will be cleaned. There are another computer with pictures in my office at nursery (15 km from my house). We have thickest snow cover in last 100 years. Think that tonight and tomorrow some more 10-15 cm will be added.
Janis

Thanks Janis.  I have another ID being checked, of a collection labelled as A. bodeanum, but here again, it'll probably be sunk into a broader definition of A. cristophii.  As soon as I hear back on this one, I shall post it.

[TheOnionMan]

First, sorry about the length of this post, but the subject has been a long-standing mystery and requires some level of detail.  I'm also sorry about the poor quality of images, all are scans from slides taken circa 1985.

In the late 1970s I subscribed to the MacPhail & Watson expedition to Turkey, receiving bulbs and seeds of several alliums. The species shown below were later identified as A. tchihatschewii Mac.&W.5766 by the collection team.  Curiously, from the few small bulbs received, two different species resulted, obviously something got mixed up. The collection resulted in the mauve-pink flowered Alliums shown below, and a dwarf purplish-maroon species that keyed to A. sivasicum (in the recorded purple phase of that species). 

Using Davis's key in the Flora of Turkey, the mauve-pink allium keyed out to one of several closely allied species, A. sieheanum coming closest, based upon that species noted as having "fastigiate-hemispherical" umbels.  Rather puzzling however, from both bulb and from seed-grown plants, two distinctly different forms arose, one with dense capitate heads of tightly closed, orbicular flowers, and another form with loose, open heads of bloom, but with the exact same grape-like orbicular florets. The flower heads were 2" (5cm) across on stems 6-8" (15-20 cm) tall, flowering in mid summer.  Flowers were sweetly fragrant, with a fruity plum-like scent.

In growth, the bulbs and leaves of both types were identical. Was I seeing two species, or one species able to have either dense capitate heads or loose heads?  To add to the mystery, I had one seedling perfectly intermediate between both dispositions, with dense-ish heads but the pedicels tending to droop and open up a bit. Since they all flowered at exactly the same time, I imagined the flower-head characteristic to be variable, or possible the plants represent a swarm of natural hybrids. And to rule out the question of bulb maturity, both the dense and open-headed forms represent fully mature plants in my photos.

Adding to the riddle, both the dense-headed and loose-headed forms each produced green-stemmed forms and silver-stemmed forms, much the way Allium flavum shows similar green-to-silver stem and leaf color variation.  After growing these plants for over 20 years, being difficult and recalcitrant, they slowly dwindling away and all are lost.

In the drawing of Allium sieheanum, it is interesting to see evidence of the bulb growth cycle.  By the time the flowering stem appears, the original bulb is all but gone, and a fresh new offset bulb has replaced it.  The foliage has withered away with only the basal leaf sheaths remaining, the new foliage emerging just as the flowers reach full anthesis. Also note the long, unequal, persistent spathe segments, and the soil line indicated with a dashed line.

My mystery onions are among a confusing group of Turkish Alliums that share a general "look" about them, including the species armenum, huber-morathii, sieheanum, wendelboanum, balansae, tchihatschewii, olympicum (the real olympicum, not the one going around under that name which is kurtzianum), and even pulchellum and stamineum.  I invited Janis to post some photos of A. tchihatschewii as he has it in his fabulous bulb catalog for 2010... the photos he sent me certainly look like a much stronger match!), as well as a couple other of these closely-related species.  I too will post photos of plants sent to me by Arnis Seisums as A. sieheanum, but which I think are probably A. wendelboanum (looking like the plants in Janis' photos).

Some Van Flora links to offer more clues:
http://vanherbaryum.yyu.edu.tr/flora/famgenustur/allium.htm

Allium tchihatschewii
http://vanherbaryum.yyu.edu.tr/flora/famgenustur/li/al/tc/index.htm
The dried herbarium specimens look possibly correct, the flowering plant close-up clearly is not right, looks like the typical A. sivasicum form with yellowish flowers tinged with brown or purple

Allium armenum
http://vanherbaryum.yyu.edu.tr/flora/famgenustur/li/al/ar/index.htm

Allium wendelboanum
http://vanherbaryum.yyu.edu.tr/flora/famgenustur/li/al/we/index.htm

Photo notes:
1  Allium aff. sieheanum - dense head type, early anthesis
2  Allium aff. sieheanum - dense head type, early-mid anthesis
3  Allium aff. sieheanum - dense head type, full anthesis
4  Allium aff. sieheanum - 2 dense heads, full anthesis
5  Allium aff. sieheanum - loose head type, full anthesis
6  Allium aff. sieheanum - intermediate head type, full anthesis
7  Allium aff. sieheanum - foliage
8  Line drawing of Allium aff. sieheanum - dense head type
9  Allium aff. sivasicum (purple phase)

[TheOnionMan]

Next are four views of a delightful little Allium that came to me as A. sieheanum from Arnis Seisums. The collection date is: Turkey, S of Cerkes, HN 0102-N22, coll. E. Hanslik. 

I do not believe this is A. sieheanum, a species described as having umbels that are "fastigiate-hemispherical"... the umbels are anything but fastigiate.  This seems much closer to A. huber-morathii.  This one is still going strong in my garden (hope I didn't jinx it) after about 7-8 years in the garden.

[Janis Ruksans]

In attachments 3 different Allium christophii (WHIR - Iran) in my collection.
Janis

[Thomas Huber]

.... seems much closer to A. huber-morathii..... 

Mark, I've never heard of Allium huber-morathii - sounds like a good plant which I must have in my garden 
Do you have a photo?